UK track and trace app shifts to Google-Apple model

In another goverment U-turn this week, the UK has sidelined its existing contact-tracing app, switching to technology provided by Google and Apple.

Head of test and trace programme, Baroness Dido Harding, and the chief executive of NHSX, Matthew Gould have said the decision was made after “rigorous field testing”.

Through testing it appears the NHS app only identified 75% of contacts made on smartphones running the Android operating system, with only 4% of those on iOS – compared to 99% when using Google and Apple framework.

The Google and Apple collaboration will allow devices to have Bluetooth running in the background and register when users come within close proximity of another mobile device and is being promoted as being more privacy-focused.

This collaboration needed the health authorities’ apps to apply the decentralised model of data storage – keeping contact lists on each device, rather than uploading it to a central authority – which is said to protect users’ privacy.

Both iOS and Android mobile operating systems are run on 99% of the world’s smartphones.

The companies’ technical designs have a crucial say in how contact-tracing apps work.

There’s still issue with how Google and Apple model uses Bluetooth to detect distance. Some devices are confusing phones in pockets one metre away, with a device in a hand three metres away.

Both Baroness Harding and Mr Gould have said the NHS app had managed to improve on this issue.

They said:

“As part of a collaborative approach we have agreed to share our own innovative work on estimating distance between app users with Google and Apple, work that we hope will benefit others, while using their solution to address some of the specific technical challenges identified through our rigorous testing.”

There’s no set date for when the app will be ready for use in UK.

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