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13 April 2021
Privacy
Apple and Google block NHS Covid-19 app update over
Apple and Google block NHS Covid-19 app update over
privacy issues
privacy issues
Apple and Google's Exposure Notification API specifically
Apple and Google's Exposure Notification API specifically
disallows asking people to share their location data
disallows asking people to share their location data
Apple and Google have blocked a scheduled update to the NHS Covid-19 contract
tracing app, over location sharing issues.
The NHS Covid-19 app, which aids contact tracing in England and Wales, uses the Exposure
Notification API, jointly built by Apple and Google to track interactions between users with their
Bluetooth signals.
The current version of the app alerts users if they spend 15 minutes or more within two metres
of another user who subsequently tests positive for Covid-19. Users are also able to scan
QR codes to check in at venues like stores, restaurants and bars. In case a venue is later
identified as a potential coronavirus hotspot, each device is sent a notification, alerting them
about the potential exposure. The data generated in this process is stored on the user's phone
and so not accessible to others.
The new version of the app was supposed to be made available on the App Store and Google
Play Store simultaneously, as lockdown rules ease nationwide ahead of the complete removal
of restrictions on 21st June. It was planned to automate the process further, by asking people
to share their logs of venue check-ins if they tested positive. The data could have been used
to alert other users.
'If an app user tests positive, they will be asked to share their venue history in a
privacy-protecting way via the app,' the Department of Health and Social Care said in a press
release last week.
'This will allow venue alerts to be generated more quickly, and improve the ability to identify
where outbreaks are occurring and take steps to prevent the virus spreading.'
However, Google and Apple explicitly ban this type of location tracking, over privacy grounds.
The tech firms have therefore refused to allow the new version of the NHS app to be
downloaded from their app stores.
The Exposure Notifications System FAQ clearly states that any contact tracing app using the
Apple-Google API must 'not share location data from the user's device with the public health
authority, Apple, or Google.'
In addition, they 'may not use location-based APIs' or 'collect any device information to identify
the precise location of users.'
'The goal of this project is to assist public health authorities in their efforts to fight COVID-19
by enabling exposure notification in a privacy-preserving manner, and the system is designed
so that the identities of the people a device comes in contact with are protected,' the Exposure
Notification FAQ states.
The older version of the NHS app is still available on the app stores of Apple and Google.
"The deployment of the functionality of the NHS Covid-19 app to enable users to upload their
venue history has been delayed," a spokeswoman for the Department of Health told the BBC.
"This does not impact the functionality of the app and we remain in discussions with our
partners to provide beneficial updates to the app which protect the public."
The development of NHS Covid-19 app was a "bumpy and painful" process, the head of the
NHS' innovation division (NHSX) said October last year.
The first version was based on a system that stored data in a centralised database. But in
April 2020, more a hundred academics and privacy experts from across the country wrote an
open letter to government, raising concerns over the threats to data security and user privacy
due to centralised approach to data collection.
Privacy groups argued that a decentralised app, where the data is kept encrypted on the
smartphone, would provide users stronger guarantees of privacy and anonymity.
Taking note of the criticism, the NHS later announced that it would abandon the centralised
contact tracing app in favour of one that would use the decentralised mobile API created by
Apple and Google.
The NHS app was finally launched in September, offering more features than similar apps
launched in other countries.
More than 22 million people are currently using the NHS app.
The Presence in Court on 12 February 2019:
scanner@freeths.co.uk_20190211_161418.pdf
Operating On The Listing Board Under The Camouflage Of:
IHQ19/0038 Triad Group Plc and ors v Makar
NAMED TARGET: MIRA MAKAR
NAMED TARGET ADDRESS: 218 BEN JONSON HOUSE
THE RESULT:
uploaded 23rd March 2021 © Emily Buchanan
UPLOADED ALREADY 23 MARCH 2021
Boodle Hatfield: 27 March 2013
Deploying Private Investigators And Terror
To Locate Late SSRM
218 Ben Jonson Ho
To Threaten Her Together With Mourant Ozannes
That If She Did Not Turn Up To Court In Jersey
The Memory Of Her Beloved Late Sister
Would Be Publicly Desecrated
Private Records Stolen From Vaults In Jersey From 1988
Thrown In Box And Placed By The Skip In Ben Jonson
By Garage, Where Private Investigators Paid By Freeths Using TRD Funds
In Cars Hounded Garage Staff (Video on this site)looking for late SSRM
From Sept 2017, Freeths gave notice that UNLESS location were revealed
such private investigators would be deployed, re activating the terror
campaign against SSRM from 27 March 2013.
This followed RPC hounding her at 333 Cromwell Tower, serving notice
to attend before Master Leslie 25 April 2011, because SSM had co-funded
TRD expenses in 2005 and prepared letters of support of fee remission.
This activity by Boodle Hatfieldwas notice of intent of what was to happen next in Jersey
where FRP turned up and filed in UK to record (2014). Applebys deployed
Posthumous Humiliation of the Deceased SSR (4.12.09) is on BAILII but Unknown
When It Was Put Up and on Jersey Court Website from Jan 2014
Those Relying On BAILII to 2021 Associate Themselves With This
Feb 19, 2018, 8:41 PM by Custodian of Information
Feb 19, 2018, 8:41 PM by Custodian of Information
on page Additional Resources
Additional Resources > pp1498 12-336- HOFFMAN BOODLE HATFIELD MOURANT OZANNES 13 04 10- FINAL ISRAEL LAWSON Witness Statement 10 April 2013 - re 27 March .pdf
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