A UK National Health Service employee looks at new NHS app to trace contacts with people potentially infected with the coronavirus disease (Covid-19) being trialled on Isle of Wight, Britain. The app has faced questions from privacy experts who say its system gathers too much information about users. — Reuters
The UK’s contact-tracing mobile phone app includes code that could allow authorities access to a user’s detailed location data and to send information to Microsoft Corp and Alphabet Inc’s Google, according to an initial technical analysis carried out by Privacy International.
Like governments around the world, the UK is developing a voluntary mobile app that uses Bluetooth technology to trace possible infections of the coronavirus, alerting users when they may have been near someone infectious. Authorities say the tools will help track and contain any resurgent outbreaks of the virus once lockdown measures lift.
