The new NHS coronavirus tracing app has been launched in England today.
The app uses Bluetooth to alert people when they have been in close contact with someone infected by Covid-19.
The app has been previously trialled in London, Newham, and the Isle of Wight. It is free to download, and can be deleted at any time.
This is the government’s second attempt at a contact tracing app, after the first was scrapped due to concerns over data storage and other issues.
Here, we take a closer look at the new coronavirus tracing app and how it protects people’s data.
What the new NHS Covid app does with your information
The app works by using low energy Bluetooth to recognise nearby phones, and calculates how far away they are.
If someone with the app tests positive for coronavirus, the app sends out alerts to other people they have been near to.
The app calculates the risk of infection depending on how close their encounter was and how long it lasted. If the encounter is considered “high-risk”, the other person will be contacted and told to self-isolate.
The app does not take your name, email address, or telephone number, nor does it collect your location data through GPS. It asks for the first part of your postcode, to help the NHS analyse where the app is being downloaded.
However, the app does not collect personal data, instead using a code system. Every day, the app creates a new code for your phone to store. Every fifteen minutes it creates a new random code, which is shared and stored on other nearby devices it communicates with. All these codes are deleted after two weeks.
If you test positive for coronavirus, you can allow your phone to share daily codes with other app users. The app shares your phone’s codes with a central Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC) server that sends the codes to all other phones which have installed the app. If these codes are matches, and the encounter is considered high-risk, people will be alerted and told to self-isolate. If you book a test via the app, it will generate a code which lasts for 48 hours that lets people automatically link their test results with the app.
What’s been said about it?
The DHSC has said it is responsible for protecting users’ privacy, and “only the minimum amount of data necessary is shared between services and data sets are held separately”.
“In future iterations of the app, app users may be asked to voluntarily share more data about themselves, for example their age-band,” it added.
“This data helps to ensure that the service offered through the app, is meeting the requirements of as many communities and needs as possible in the response to COVID-19.
“Any change to the data requested will be reviewed, will be lawful, and will be available as an additional choice by the user.”
Other experts have weighed in on the app, attempting to assuage people’s concerns about a potential invasion of privacy or misuse of data.
Eerke Boiten, professor in cyber security at De Montfort University, told HuffPost UK: “It records the minimal amount of personal data and most of the data is only recorded on the phone.
“It compares extremely favourably [to Facebook] but having said that, Facebook is for sharing stuff that you want to share with people you want to share it with.”
Celebrated physicist Professor Brian Cox urged people to install the app, saying: “For those who have privacy concerns about the NHS Covid app, it uses Apple and Google’s API, not governments.
“If you are a conspiracy theorist and don’t trust Apple and Google, remember you have installed their OS anyway so it makes no difference!”
Can I stop using the app if I want to?
The app is free to download from Apple and Google’s app stores.
It is not compulsory to download it, however. You can also turn off the contact tracing setting in the app.
You can delete the app at any time – which will also stop notifications from it. When you delete the app, all data stored on it will be deleted.