
NHS rejects Apple-Google coronavirus app plan - jfk13
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-52441428
======
noodlesUK
This is silly. There’s a clearly demonstrable reason why Germany switched
tack, and why the UK should too. All of this contact tracing can be done in a
privacy preserving way. However, the NHSX development of these tools is led by
such industry partners as palantir... We aren’t going to see much regard for
privacy from them.

Edit: Google and Apple need to get their act together though, and just provide
a contact tracing framework as part of the OS that is compatible, and can have
data housed in each country where they see fit. It should be optional for
people, but it should be part of the OS, and it should just be presented to
the countries as ready to go with just a little bit of integration. That way
we can force everyone to respect user privacy and not do sketchy contact
tracing apps.

~~~
grawprog
>All of this contact tracing can be done in a privacy preserving way.

Explain how having every person you're in contact with being tracked by
governments and corporations can be done in a 'privacy preserving way'. The
very concept of contact tracing is probably the greatest violation of privacy
I've seen proposed yet.

~~~
jws
Read the spec, but in a nutshell you only report your tokens if you test
positive. Then other people check to see if they have seen any reported tokens
using a clever algorithm that doesn't involve them reporting all the tokens
they have seen.

The central authority just has a list of tokens from infected people. A
corrupt central authority _could_ also massively deploy token recorders across
an area and then see when and where the infected people were seen, but
governments already have that capability just from the cellular systems.

------
jupp0r
This is insane. Why would they risk people not adopting the app due to privacy
concerns while it's only effective if a majority of the population uses it?

What's the benefit if they can gather better stats with a central approach if
it doesn't work because a lot of people aren't installing the app?

~~~
crocodiletears
Of all the western world, the population of the UK seems to me the least
concerned about privacy.

Given the ubiquity of (and willingness to leverage) the UK's camera and
social-media surveillance across across all level of law enforcement in the
country, I've come under the impression that they've collectively decided that
they'll tolerate just about anything in exchange for an orderly and secure
society.

Mandatory app installation really doesn't seem out of the question.

~~~
amiga_500
I think it's actually that of all the western world, Americans are the most
obsessed about government conspiracies.

Which is so weird because despite all this rugged "fight for your rights",
Americans have some of the weakest labour and health rights. But I guess you
do have the right to say you have very weak rights!

~~~
T-hawk
That last can be framed in the opposite direction: America has stronger
_company_ rights.

American companies are more free to not pay a worker who is delivering no work
on sick or parental leave, and to end employment of a worker they no longer
want to employ. American health providers have more right to gain profits from
their services. American companies are generally less burdened by things like
VAT tracking and customs enforcement and silly cookie disclosures.

There's a reason that the FAANG industry dominators all came from American
origins, as well as those of yesteryear like IBM and Intel, or in other
industries like Ford or Disney or Visa.

~~~
mantap
The USA has one of the most insane systems on the planet. There's 50 states
plus DC. Each with their own laws which apply to anybody selling in that
state, so if a business is selling in 50 states then they need to follow 50
sets of laws, and that's before we get to smaller jurisdictions. The tax
system is byzantine and nightmarish even by the standards of tax systems.

What the USA has going for it is that it was very far away from its enemies
during WW2, and so while European countries had to rebuild everything, the US
economy went into overdrive. Plus it's the 3rd most populous country in the
world and that has advantages.

It's certainly nothing to do with simplicity of doing business.

------
cm2187
So basically the NHS wants to make it a surveillance system because they think
they will get some interesting data watching every movements.

They may be right. But this piece of dirt won't be on my phone.

~~~
chimprich
I'd be happy to install it for the duration of the outbreak. It's not as if
I'm doing anything terribly interesting.

It doesn't sound like it would collect anywhere near as much personal data as
Google, or the government, already does.

For the sake of protecting lives and getting out of lockdown quicker to
rebuild the economy I'm prepared to sacrifice a little privacy.

Edit: I don't particularly care, but there seems to be a systematic approach
from some users to voting down posts for expressing honestly held beliefs that
a balanced approach can be taken with respect to privacy.

~~~
jupp0r
The question is why they didn't implement it in a decentralized way that works
together with OS primitives implemented by Google and Apple. I would also
install it for the duration of the outbreak, _if_ there wasn't any effective
alternative. My gripe is that there _is_ an alternative that works 100% as
well and they chose to ignore it in favor of universal population
surveillance.

~~~
chimprich
It's a fair question; the answer to that doesn't seem to have been
communicated yet.

We can speculate as to reasons why: one could be that the authors feel that
the decentralised approach is lacking some important feature that could save
lives, such as insufficient feedback about how it is being used.

Another could be that they feel that they can implement a solution faster than
waiting for Google/Apple to finish their platform and then building something
on top of it. This leaves open the possibility of changing tack if the new API
is superior.

Or maybe they're just hedging their bets in case the Google/Apple approach
doesn't work or gets pulled.

(I'm assuming none of this is a nefarious plot by the government to add to
their general surveillance powers. I personally don't think they'd care given
the considerable abilities they already reputedly have to track mobiles).

------
raphaelj
That's very bad. Anonymous and (mostly) decentralized contact tracing is
definitively possible, and is exactly what the D3P-T and Apple/Google
protocols are trying to achieve.

Developing a reasonably anonymous contact-tracing app is not that complex at
all. I wrote a very simple (but working) app that also implements contact-
tracing in a way similar to D3P-T or Apple/Google, and it only took me a few
days: [https://github.com/RaphaelJ/covid-
tracer/blob/master/README....](https://github.com/RaphaelJ/covid-
tracer/blob/master/README.md)

Users will also never opt-in for such apps if they don't at least try to
slightly protect privacy.

------
samwillis
Could someone with a little more understanding of the frameworks and
restrictions please explain what this means for locking iPhones while the app
is tracking, and using Bluetooth devices like AirPods? Does it prevent them
from working and stop you locking your device?

Also not a good look (edit: for the uk) on the day Germany swapped from using
this style app to a Google-Apple backed system.

If the true reason for the centralised matching is that they want to have a
better oversight of the spread could they not do that with the Google-Apple
system by having it (optionally) phone home to a server when there is a match?

~~~
asperous
Bluetooth allows 7 devices connected at once, but actually the spec uses
bluetooth low energy which is a special low-bandwidth, low-energy mode. You
can lock your device. [1]

It sounds to me like NHS wants location data logs of everyone in the country.
You can measure contacts and spread that way but it's a privacy disaster. The
decentralized approach tells authorities and users if they've been near
someone who later on marked themselves as infected. The data is much more
limited but still accomplishes the main purpose.

[1] [https://covid19-static.cdn-
apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...](https://covid19-static.cdn-
apple.com/applications/covid19/current/static/contact-
tracing/pdf/ExposureNotification-BluetoothSpecificationv1.1.pdf)

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
There is no BLE hard limit to device connections here at all.

This whole system works on advertising packets. Beacons are non-connectable,
aptly named.

Your phone can be connected n number of BLE devices and also appear to be n
number of peripherals itself. No hard limit that I can think of, usually just
depends on the stack.

But this isn’t that. This is your phone pumping out <CONTACT: I am 7733> and
listening for other people’s phones to say <CONTACT: I am xxxx>.

I can think of no stack that has a connection limit and after that stops
allowing for reception of advertising packets.

~~~
breischl
Nitpicky clarification: at least for the Apple/Google spec it's advertising
something more like "my key for the current 15-minute timespan is 7733". ie,
not your identity, just a temporary key.

~~~
SlowRobotAhead
Yes, that’s true. I didn’t think I had to clarify it there but if you aren’t
familiar with the idea it is an important factor.

------
ucarion
From the the article:

> Germany had been in line with NHSX, but its government announced on Sunday
> it had switched tack to a "strongly decentralised approach".

Today's Stratechery ([https://stratechery.com/2020/more-on-apple-and-google-
german...](https://stratechery.com/2020/more-on-apple-and-google-germany-
versus-apple-facebooks-surveys/)):

> What is worth noting is why Germany changed their approach:

> > Germany as recently as Friday backed a centralized standard called Pan-
> European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT), which would have
> needed Apple in particular to change the settings on its iPhones. When Apple
> refused to budge there was no alternative but to change course, said a
> senior government source.

> This is exactly what I was driving at in Coronavirus Clarity: tech companies
> are the ones setting the rules, not governments.

~~~
cwhiz
I can't read that article without an account but the quotes imply that only
Apple was standing in the way of the centralized approach. Did Germany have a
centralized contact tracing solution through Android?

Is there more context that might imply that Google wasn't playing ball?

~~~
tssva
iOS has more restrictions than Android regarding Bluetooth use by applications
in the background. Germany may have needed Apple to change those restrictions
while Android already provided the access they needed.

------
supernova87a
I ask an uncomfortable question for debate about this:

Many of us probably think ridiculous the people who are jumping to reopen
businesses (and states) in the interest of economic activity, at the cost of
putting people's lives at risk.

Why, on the other hand, is privacy so important versus saving lives if a more
effective (but slightly less private) information gathering mechanism could be
implemented?

How do we judge one not worth the risk, while the other is?

~~~
JoshTriplett
You can't put it back in the box. Once an abusable capability exists, it
_will_ be abused.

The most effective time to try to create a pervasive surveillance system is
when people are afraid.

Also, there's no evidence that a more invasive system is "more effective". If
a privacy-preserving system is equally effective, there's no valid argument.
And in any case, if a privacy-preserving system is effective enough to get
community transmission under control (bringing R below 1), that may suffice.

~~~
abecedarius
Further, the more invasive might be _less_ effective because less adopted.

------
diebeforei485
The Apple-Google protocol is designed to reasonably protect their users even
in less-free countries.

Consider every Middle Eastern country; China (Xinjiang, Tibet etc); India
(Kashmir etc); Latin American countries that have cozy relationships with
gangs and cartels; Russia; even the USA with ICE and other agencies.

Do you really think Apple and Google should be giving information on their
users to those governments? They can't possibly say "stronger contact tracing
for Canadians, but not for Mexicans" \- it has to be one global standard.

~~~
ENOTTY
> [Apple and Google] can't possibly say "stronger contact tracing for
> Canadians, but not for Mexicans" \- it has to be one global standard.

Why not? Apple and Google could just as easily say, "Only countries that meet
the standards we set get access to more data."

On one hand, it seems like the HN community seems okay with giving Apple and
Google the power to set norms on technology policy that apply worldwide (e.g.,
what level of potential privacy loss is acceptable to combat a pandemic), but
on the the other hand we don't trust Apple and Google to know how to
distinguish a totalitarian regime from a government that respects its
citizens' rights?

~~~
diebeforei485
It's very hard to make such a distinction in practice, because it comes off as
Apple saying that some of their customers' lives are worth more than others.

------
BlackVanilla
It's worth highlighting the differences between the UK and the rest of the
world. The NHS is embedded into the UK's culture. Since the start of lockdown,
drawings of rainbows are commonly seen in windows with captions like 'Thank
you NHS and key workers' and on Thursdays at 8pm, people stand on doorsteps
and clap for the NHS. The NHS is very well trusted and this app, if viewed as
a creation of NHS (or NHSX) and not 'the government', could still remain
successful despite privacy concerns.

Unlike other countries, the UK has the opportunity to frame this as an NHS-
created app, rather than a state-created app. If they're able to do that, then
it wouldn't surprise me that the UK's population takes up the app.

Additionally, few people consider data privacy concerns at the best of times.
Given the circumstances, I think more people are willing to prioritise public
health over privacy concerns.[1] So, they seem to have judged that the richer
data trumps the slight reduction in usage.

The combination of these factors could be the rationale behind this judgment
call.

[1]
[https://www.ft.com/content/1752affb-24dc-4ad9-8503-78f9ce1ad...](https://www.ft.com/content/1752affb-24dc-4ad9-8503-78f9ce1adca9)
(there's a paywall, so the link below shows a similar poll)

[2] Ipsos MORI poll
[https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2020-04/coronaviru...](https://www.ipsos.com/sites/default/files/2020-04/coronavirus-
covid-19-infographic-ipsos-mori.pdf)

~~~
1996
> on Thursdays at 8pm, people stand on doorsteps and clap for the NHS

This looks very orwellian. Does it come from a grass root initiative, or was
it started by the government?

~~~
cameronbrown
It's not a requirement or anything, people are clapping voluntarily. Britain
doesn't just like the NHS, it really does _love_ the service.

~~~
TechBro8615
This is quite the generalization, equivalent to saying that Americans _love_
the Democratic Party. A poll in 2019 found that satisfaction with the NHS hit
an eleven year low, with 53% of respondents satisfied with services in the
year prior.

[https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47472472](https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-47472472)

~~~
ck425
There's a difference between being satisfied with the healthcare it provides
and loving the NHS. People in the UK love the NHS as a concept and an
institution, even if we're still often critical of the quality of service
provided. Additionally most people lay the blame for that quality on
underfunding from the government. The NHS is largely believed to be doing a
decent job with the resources is has and has been screwed over by austerity
again and again.

------
buboard
Centralized or not, app-based contact tracing has not worked anywhere. The
countries that do successful tracing do it manually, and when personal data is
used, it's only infected people's data. Taiwan's minister explains here:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScIVe6STVxI](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ScIVe6STVxI)
. No need to bug the entire population for this.

As long as new cases are very low, manual tracing by trained personell is
superior (because of all the edge cases) and sustainable. If you have too many
cases (>100s per million) you re better off shutting down anyway.

What are all these apps other than a new kind of surveillance toys, which we
know will be force-installed in many countries and will most likely be abused?
Maybe it's solutionism that appeals to world leaders for safety theater.

[https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/inaccurate-and-
insecure...](https://www.brookings.edu/techstream/inaccurate-and-insecure-why-
contact-tracing-apps-could-be-a-disaster/)

------
amelius
Doesn't bluetooth give too many false positives anyway (with its range that is
far greater than the required 6ft, and its ability to pierce walls?) And how
will the general public respond to these false positives? I fear that the
effect of a covid app will be somewhere between chaotic and useless.

~~~
tgsovlerkhgsel
The protocols I've seen involve using the signal strength, including knowing
the transmission strength, which will probably allow treating people on the
other side of any semi-solid wall as "not in contact".

~~~
amelius
Then doesn't the human body act like a wall to a significant extent?

------
Mvandenbergh
It would be nice if we could have a serious discussion, rather than assuming
that this must certainly be the wrong decision, made by nefarious spies acting
behind the scenes.

First, it is important to understand that there are two protocols, both of
them based on the work done by the Oxford epi group and others over the years
on minimally disclosive electronic contact tracing.

Both of these are a massive privacy improvement on the pervasive surveillance
used in South Korea and China. I don't know enough about the Singapore app to
comment on that but I would guess this is also an improvement on what they
have.

These protocols are DP-3T, on which Google/Apple have based their API and
PEPP-PT which many countries including the UK have been building their
solution. Until very recently, Germany was also using PEPP-PT but they have
switched to DP-3T.

Both protocols make trade-offs between the amount of information which leaks
and the usefulness of the tool. That's important. Installing an app based on
either will strictly reduce your current privacy.

It is also important, in understanding the privacy trade-off made, to
understand the degree of _new_ privacy loss from either framework. We are
already pervasively geolocated based on our phone position, this just adds a
possible layer of precision to that data. If GCHQ wants to track your
movements, they do have tools which can do that relatively effectively
already.

Both frameworks use pseudo-random rotating keys which are exchanged over
Bluetooth.

In PEPP-PT a central server manages a rotating private key which is used to
generate a set of time-gated ephemeral IDs for each device. Devices exchange
and log these IDs.

When a health authority determines that someone is infected, they issue them a
key which allows them to upload all their logged IDs to the central server.
The server is able to determine who the infected person's phone has logged a
contact with and notify those people. A random sample of additional people
also receive notification messages which their phones are able to discard as
invalid decoy messages.

In DP-3T, the keys are generated on the devices and IDs are stored only on the
devices. If a central server authorises you to do so (based on a confirmed
diagnosed infection), you broadcast the IDs of all the devices you have been
in proximity to. All devices regularly download a list of IDs and check the
list for one of their own rotating ID numbers. If they match, the user is
notified and is able to pre-emptively isolate.

The second approach reduces the consequences of a nefarious central operator
but at the cost of sharing more information with more people (since everyone
sees the list of possibly-infected IDs). In other words, even in privacy
terms, this is not a perfect approach either. That information can be used to
carry out re-identification attacks and reveal infected users if certain
conditions are met.

From a privacy point of view, I think many people would prefer the latter
(possibly allow malicious attacker, if they are able to do certain not-so-easy
things to determine that they were infected) since most people in the UK will
not consider that deeply private and secret information about themselves. Many
of my friends who got it have posted about it on FB, twitter, etc. The former,
which gives a state actor more information seems like a greater breach of
privacy.

However, it is worth considering why the NHSX team has made this decision,
there are epidemiological reasons to significantly prefer PEPP-PT.

First, it allows tweaking of the notification algorithm over time. DP-3T only
allows notification of everyone in the contact with no risk indication, it's
binary.

Second, the greater information on the infection graph available to the
central authority allows for better aggregate contact measuring which may
shape increasing or decreasing distancing measures much more quickly than is
currently possible since we currently have to use measures that lag
considerably.

DP-3T requires more data exchange and on-phone calculation but I'm not
convinced that is a convincing argument against it.

I tend towards selecting the solution with greater protection against state
data collection and the fact that it will have API support and will therefore
likely be able to run with a lower power requirement means that I would select
DP-3T over PEPP-PT but I'm not the one who has to make that decision and I
would love to see the internal decision making document. I do not think it is
so obvious as many people are making it out to be.

~~~
ggm
Nice read, good summary. Thanks for focussing on the structural and protocol
difference. Helped me understand.

------
soylentcola
One thing I don't see mentioned and may have missed: if this is all (at least
allegedly) anonymous and infection status is self-reported, what is to stop
trolls and pranksters from marking themselves as "infected" and then going
about their day in public/crowded spaces?

Seems like false connections could be spread more easily than the actual
virus, no? I would hope this has been addressed somehow but if not, have you
ever met people? People* will always figure out a way to break stuff given the
opportunity.

*Valid for some subset of "people".

~~~
Slartie
Infection status is not self-reported without some kind of authorization from
the authority that provides the actual app used for tracing - which is
probably some local government entity. That app is built on top of
Apple/Google API which does all the BT broadcasting and scanning and key
generation stuff, but the government still retains the capability of setting
up a system for authorizing app users to flag themselves as infected and thus
upload their daily keys to some server (which is probably also operated by the
provider of the app, I suppose).

------
hackandtrip
Will iOS - iOS Bluetooth communication be ok with those new API? Wasn't a
major problem with other frameworks the iOS Bluetooth turning off for battery
capacity?

~~~
barbegal
It can work in a limited fashion using iBeacons. These have special status on
iPhones allowing them to be received by an app even in the background. But
even these are rate limited and each iBeacon can only wake up the app once
when it comes into range.

------
cm2187
Weren't Google and Apple going to release an official app along their API? It
may be that if the NHS app gets enough bad press (which apparently it should),
people naturally use Google and Apple's implementation. Even people who are
happy to go along the NHS will likely also want to have the Apple/Google app
running as well, as they don't know from which of the two "networks" the
notification will come from.

~~~
djrogers
No, Google and Apple announced they are creating APIs and tools for
governments to build apps - they are not releasing an App themselves.

"8\. Who will create the apps and where do I find them? Public health
authorities will update or create apps which users may install if they choose
to participate. Google and Apple will make available, as normal, the public
health authority apps for each region in the Play Store and App Store."

[1] [https://covid19-static.cdn-
apple.com/applications/covid19/cu...](https://covid19-static.cdn-
apple.com/applications/covid19/current/static/contact-
tracing/pdf/ExposureNotification-FAQv1.0.pdf)

------
kolleykibber
This makes no sense, so there will be a consultant firm behind this poor
decision. It's sure it'll play out just like the direction the UK took over
the lockdown.

The app take up will be poor and they'll start using the goog/appl data
'alongside' the centralised app, eventually sidelining the centralised app
altogether.

But the contractors will have been paid and will continue to be paid.

~~~
kolleykibber
Edit:

Seems Like Carole Cadwalladr has already joined the dots...

@carolecadwalla Let’s add another data point. Faculty won this contract back
in August, we now know. That’s when NHSX new £250m lab announced. Yet Faculty
decided to divulge this news on March 13. Day after SAGE meeting Cummings
attended with Ben Warner - brother of Faculty founder, Marc

[https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/125488742826086809...](https://twitter.com/carolecadwalla/status/1254887428260868096)

------
figgyc
Apple and Google could force otherwise if they just ban the app from their
stores. Especially considering that they seem to be using some questionable
workarounds to run in the background on iOS, they could chalk it down to
policy, but it probably wouldn't be in their best interests since "Apple
blocks NHS from releasing contact tracing app" would not be a good headline.

------
lunias
Forgive my ignorance, but is it possible to create two competing apps? I know
this is not at all ideal (kind of defeats the purpose), but I believe people
could be steered to the better choice over a little bit of time.

Is the NHSX planning to try and force Google / Apple to change their plan and
build the app the way that they want or are they proposing that they will
develop a different app?

------
gnufx
I'm not sure I entirely agree, but Ross Anderson deserves to be read on the
topic: [https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2020/04/12/contact-
traci...](https://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2020/04/12/contact-tracing-in-
the-real-world/)

~~~
zb
It’s not often I dare to disagree with Ross Anderson, but most of these
objections don’t make a lot of sense to me. There’s nothing to stop the app
from phoning home once a contact is identified, so all of the human-in-the-
loop stuff is still possible.

The only difference between a centralised and decentralised solution so far as
I can tell is whether or not we end up with massive centralised databases of
every social contact between people who are _not_ infected. Collecting that
data seems completely unjustifiable to me, given that it is by definition
unnecessary.

------
Cantbekhan
I don't trust Apple and Google but I trust my government even less. And I also
do (cynically) think that Google and Apple already have most of this contact
tracing information anyway... I mean I would even trust Facebook more than my
govt.

~~~
lowwave
In addition Google and Apple are US companies, and US has worse privacy law
than Europe. The future may be each person or entity will self host their own
data on a RasberryPi (or better yet BeagleBoard).

~~~
stevenwliao
We can't expect everyone to secure their own data infrastructure. Billions
don't even know how to use a Raspberry Pi.

~~~
lowwave
In the end it is all about who owns the data.

~~~
stevenwliao
There are other concerns- availability, durability, security, privacy (once
info leaves the box and goes into some system).

------
est31
I've watched some German TV recently and heard politicians claim that
Apple/Google demanded access to the contact tracing data if the government
were to get it as well.

------
Angostura
Oh dear. I was definitely going to put this on my phone. Now I won’t b

------
KCUOJJQJ
I think that a few terms appeared that describe superstitious beliefs. These
terms are (not a complete list):

* tracking app

* social distancing

* self quarantine

* lockdown

Life is not a video game. There are no game designers able to decide that
tracking apps somehow work, for instance. Can you please not downvote my post?

------
rezeroed
I'd sooner acquire the virus than put theses things on my phone.

~~~
TwoHeadedBeast
It's not all about you, it's about trying to stop the spread of the virus to
people who might be more vulnerable than you are.

~~~
mrob
As the Apple/Google system shows, it's possible to do contact tracing without
sacrificing privacy. The blame is entirely with the UK government, not anybody
who takes the reasonable step of refusing to support unnecessarily harmful
technology.

~~~
9HZZRfNlpR
They won't show it on practice, no one can bet it. Read source but what is on
the phone. Just take their word? Phones are locked down devices.

~~~
azinman2
Apple / Google already have control of your phone in this regard to begin
with. So why is the contact tracing framework such an issue?

------
deminature
This is more a reflection of the poor reputation towards privacy of Google
rather than a rational response to the joint contact tracing specification
issued by Google/Apple. The specification was clearly engineered to be as
privacy conscious as possible and it would be very difficult to extract PII
from stored data, but it looks like the well of trust is unrecoverably
poisoned.

------
easytiger
An app is not the answer to this. Contact tracing is not necessary as a
solution to this. Indeed it is nearly worthless.

People here who make proverbial hammers are liable to want to hit nails,
without considering if it is necessary. Especially considering the lockdown
and that you can't get tested.

~~~
azinman2
Contact tracing is a known strategy for dealing with epidemics, and has
demonstrated effectiveness not only in past epidemics, but is working very
well today (manually) in South Korea. This helps it scale and makes it
possible to know about exposures to strangers.

------
smileypete
Wonder if the Apple Google plan involved keeping the data within UK borders at
all time?

Trouble is, as soon as the data leaves these shores, it falls under the usual
Five Eyes spying loopholes.

I had one of those Youtube surveys 'Do you trust Apple, Google etc with your
health data' \- Not very much thankyou!

~~~
strictnein
You understand the UK is part of the Five Eyes, right? And with this plan the
NHS will just have access to all the data?

So the thing you are fearful of is actually happening because the NHS plan is
the route they are choosing.

~~~
anpago
With GCHQ advising on the App..

