So if you've been keeping up with our videos here you've probably seen me
explain how the Apple and Google contact tracing app works but I wanted to have a
little bit more into the specifics and how contact tracing that rollouts are
actually going to stick around hey everyone welcome back to today in tech
I'm Juliet Beauchamp I am here with computer world senior writer Charlotte
Trueman she's coming in all the way from the UK and she is going to give us some
really valuable insights about how the UK app rollout has gone so Charlotte
thank you so much for calling in thank you for having me do that so the UK is
sort of in a pretty interesting position and I'm not sure maybe you know how many
countries are like it in that when Google and Apple had these plans to roll
out their own contact tracing app and then you know license that API to health
organizations around the world it seemed like the UK kind of said we're gonna do
it our own way and we're going to create an app on our own and so yeah back in
kind of late March the government made decision that they were going to take us
centralized approach to developing their contract contact tracing and as opposed
to the decentralized approach that Apple and Google were touting and so basically
the difference between that is where is the Apple and Google model all the
information would be stored on people's devices and with the centralized model
and all the information that the app content collects would be soared in a
centralized database so why did the UK originally go this route it was now and
can you also tell me a little bit about the app it's maybe something that's
perhaps unfamiliar to our US viewers that obviously the UK you have sort of a
centralized health agency in the NHS so you can you tell me a little bit about
you know how the NHS went about creating that app or how the UK government went
about creating that app with the NHS yeah
of course so um so originally um actually the first app that came about
that was a kind of contact tracing app in the UK and that was developed by
Professor a University here and with King's College London University and
they kind of they have a technology already for a different project and then
when coronavirus came about they decided to pivot that technology and start kind
of just collecting if people could download the app login and then they
could just kind of input their symptoms and then it would give sort of an idea
of where clusters of coronavirus cases were and obviously that was kind of
private apps they were working with Vienna NHS it was an an NHS endorsed app
and so then the government came along and said that as we as we've discussed
because he's discussed previously that is kind of central to the contact
tracing system so obviously as well as collecting calling people up if they
have test positive coronavirus you'll see don't know he in next to public
transport or in a shop and the best way to do that is are an app on your phones
so then the NHS said they were going to kind of launch their own one because the
NHS has um this kind of subsidy called NHS X which develops all the kind of
technology and does the digital work oh the NHS and long story short it seems
like that original app didn't exactly work out so I want to talk about sort of
the specifics in the details of why the UK government and NHS approach did it
work yeah so kind of give a bit of a timeline they announced they were gonna
start developing this app kind of late March early April and then around kind
of mid April issue so there was reports that come out in the press that they
kind of the UK government was sort of at a standoff with Apple and Google because
they decided to kind of take this alternative
how they're gonna develop the app and back there mid-april this is an Apple
and Google said you can you can do that but we're not going to kind of support
that technology we're not gonna support that in our app stores and it kind of
goes against our privacy regulations and the UK government said we don't think
that's the case we think our app is still gonna work and decided to forge
ahead with their idea and they did develop an app it did exist and then
they decided to trial it as you kind of need to and they launched it on a place
called the Isle of Wight which is a little island south of the UK no well
not in the English Channel but it's it's just kind of yeah south of England and
the population on the Isle of Wight is about one hundred and forty two thousand
people and so they were trying the app I think for about a month and basically
during that time it was found there were issues with the app like so the phones
actually connecting so the technology and the UK government was using it only
and when it came to iPhones one of the issues was although the technology was
running in the background unless the app was kind of open on your phone and you
were using the app or your screen was kind of in use then and the person you
were next to you was that scream was also news of the app was also in use the
phones wouldn't connect so if I have my own phone like just kind of asleep in my
bag and I walk past someone whose iPhone is kind of in the same mode our phones
wouldn't connect and I think in the end it was only 4% of iPhones or iPhones
using this app actually connected so did the original UK app that launched on the
Isle of Wight did it sort of work similarly or did it have some of the
similar ideas as the Apple Google app because as we know and as I've covered
here on the channel and for any our viewers who are out of the loop or
want to know a little bit more about the specifics I'll link both of our videos
about the Apple and Google contact tracing app below but the way that that
app worked the Google and Apple app that is is that the two phones and the reason
that Apple Google obviously work together is that those are the two major
operating systems is if that you know I have an iPhone and I'm in the grocery
store and I'm within six ish feet of someone else our phones can be talking
to each other to each other via bluetooth things is that how the UK
original app was supposed to work yeah yes that's how it that's how it was
meant to work and but because of the technology they decided to use that
wasn't the case like I say if your iPhone was asleep what was an amuse then
it wouldn't register and they had the same problems with Android but not as
they do that's a high percentage of failure rate so by now it seems as
though the UK has pretty much scrapped these plans right
and that the government is now going to be going with the Apple Google model all
along yeah so as well as the kind of the failure of the phone's connecting there
was also quite a few questions around security and privacy as well obviously
and by using the centralized model that they wanted to they were then kind of
questions about the security data and how it was going to be stored and then
also it came out that if your data was gonna be kept for about ten years I
think it was in the end by the NHS and whoever your phone connected with their
data kept five years so obviously people weren't too happy about that
and so what transpired after all of this after our health ministers after our
secretaries state mankato cap saying the app was coming the app was coming the
deadline kept getting pushed back and getting more vague eventually they had
to admit that actually that didn't work and that we're gonna have to adopt this
Google model initially at a press conference Matt Hancock and said that
they were doing like a hybrid model between the UK technology and Apple
technology and Apple then can came out and said no one told us about that we
don't know where that's come from and there were also some other questions as
well and the UK claims that the Apple version or Google version of the app
also had trouble calculating distance so it wouldn't know the difference in say
one meter apart and three meters apart I don't see if your three meters apart
that's not a problem you don't need to your friends they need to pay whereas if
you've been within 1 meter of someone that was breaking kind of social
distancing guidelines at the time so that would be an issue
again a prove said that's not something an issue that other countries have
raised with us so yeah there's now some questions around what is the next step I
guess I'd like to also look at and maybe point to some countries that have had a
somewhat successful rollout of an app I think so often it seems as though the
case with these rollers is pretty much you know you're only going to be as
successful as the percentage of the people that actually download the app
and that can be a real issue when people have privacy concerns or people just
have you know general mistrust of tech companies so can you point our audience
to some semi-successful adoptions of a contact tracing app because here in the
US while some contact tracing apps have been licensed to state public health
departments it's we haven't really seen anything you know widespread yet yeah
not a tricky question but I guess kind of definition of successful can kind of
differ depending on who you're talking to
and so when all this kind of debacle was going on and the UK Prime Minister Boris
Johnson actually came out and said as defending his government said that
actually no country in the world has to successful contact tracing app people
kind of disagreed with him to certain extent but kind of the big one that I
guess people look to initially was South Korea they seem to have a very
successful app I read somewhere that penny was so successful tracking
citizens that actually found out that people were having affairs because it
tracked people so well you can see when they were not where they should be other
countries in Europe and in Germany have rolled out a contact tracing app and I
think that's still quite early days so again it all kind of depends on download
rates like he said for it to be successful just because the technology
works if no one downloads that it's not gonna function how it needs to be I
think Australia and Singapore had that problem they rolled out apps quite early
on but the download rates amongst the populations were just so low that they
didn't end up being of any use so while there are some countries that have
functioning technology and functioning apps whether they are successful or not
in actually tracing people and kind of lowering cases of coronavirus is thanks
to yet to be seen great well in that case I guess we'll just have to have you
back once the UK has hopefully a meaningful rollout of the app or perhaps
rather a meaningful rollout of the app I really appreciate your insight Charlotte
I think it's really interesting like I already mentioned you know I've covered
the specifics and the basics of how the app works but look into an actual
rollout I think is really helpful to understanding just how technology may
contribute to containing the spread of the corona virus so thank you so much
thank you for having me and thank you all so much for watching this episode of
today and tech if you liked this video be sure to give it a thumbs up and
subscribe to our Channel hit the notification icon in the corner
so you can be alerted every single time we post a new video like I mentioned
earlier if you have any questions about how the Apple and Google app works we
have two videos that I will link below in the description for you to check out
let me know in the comments if you be willing to download this app if
you're in the UK and you actually use the original UK app I'd love to hear
your perspective as well thank you all so much again for watching and I'll see
you next time
you