Apple-Google Exposure Notification: Latest News & Will Britain’s NHS U-Turn?
The exposure notification app created by Apple and Google has reached a new milestone: examples of what the app will look like have been released and more details shared.
But there are still lots of questions about how the app will work, how well and whether a decentralized system is best. The British health service, the NHS, has decided to go its own way with a centralized system – but is that about to change
How accurate is the system?
Earlier this week representatives from Apple and Google revealed more and answered press questions. I first asked about the precision Bluetooth can offer. I was curious about false positives. Imagine I’m standing in the street and there’s a guy parked in his car right beside me, with his windows closed. I’m not going to catch anything from him, but would our phones recognize each other as being close enough to exchange the Bluetooth beacons on which close encounters are decided?
I was told that this was theoretically possible but that the close liaison had to last at least five minutes before the beacons considered it a connection worth mentioning. It’s true, if the car was merely paused at a red light, he wouldn’t be there five minutes later. But if he’s parked and chatting to a friend, well, five minutes could easily pass
What’s new?
In the last few days, tools were released so public health authorities can begin testing their apps, with the beta of a Google Play Services update and SDK and similarly a beta release of Xcode for Apple developers, for instance.
Sample app code has also been published and the principles which public health authority apps must follow. Both companies have also unveiled system screens for iOS and Android along with indications of what the onboarding experience will look like, and what exposure notifications will look like.
I also asked whether health authorities which decided to go for a centralized approach – Apple and Google’s is decentralized – could still benefit from any part of the work the two companies are doing.
While it’s clear that many authorities have been working closely with Apple and Google all the way along even if they choose their own app in the end, it’s not clear how much interoperability there will be between separate systems. Certainly, Apple and Google representatives pointed out that theirs was a decentralized approach which had real benefits for privacy. They also indicated that decentralized and centralized approaches are incompatible
How will it look?
On the iPhone, for instance, in the iOS 13.5 update which is currently in public beta, a new menu appears in Settings. Go to Health and there’s a new option: COVID-19 Exposure Logging. Here, you’ll see what app is being used by the relevant public health authority and also how often the exposure log has received a request to be checked in the last 14 days. If the app believes you may have been exposed, the phone receives a push notification
The NHS app goes live today
Well, that’s a trial version, being piloted in one place only, the Isle of Wight, an island off the south coast of England. From today, the 141,000 population can access it and it’s just been reported that the app has been downloaded more than 33,000 in just a few hours. Allowing for part of the population being children and others not having smartphones, authorities reckon that more than a third of adults have already signed up.
In Britain, zip codes are called postcodes and made up of two halves, such as SW1A 0AA. That’s the Houses of Parliament, by the way. The first half refers to a part of a city, town or region and the second half to a small number of streets or buildings.
On sign-up, the app requires the user to enter either the first half of the postcode or the whole thing (there seem to be different experiences of app users). Either way, this is location information and is there so the British government can know where the COVID hotspots are. But this incontrovertibly means it’s a centralized app.
There’s also a question mark over how well it will work. It seems that to send out signals to other phones, the app needs to be in the foreground. It also seems this will deplete the battery much faster than it would in a background app, of course.
Will the British government do a U-Turn?
There are signs it might. Like the French government, the U.K. has said it wants its own app, thank you. But there are now reports that Australia, which also has an app that eschews the Apple-Google approach, has run into technical difficulties, as reported in the Financial Times. Germany had previously sought to go its own way but changed its mind and turned to Apple-Google as well.
Should the U.K. go with the Apple-Google system?
The usefulness of knowing where in a country the COVID cases are is undeniable, but it potentially comes at a cost of user privacy. Also, if it’s true that it hurts battery life, users will quickly opt out.
Then there’s the question of whether an app that’s incompatible could prove problematic for international travelers. It might present barriers for Britons travelling abroad in the future, the FT says.
For these and privacy concerns, there are strong reasons why the U.K. should consider switching to the Apple-Google system.
This story is unfolding on a daily basis. I’ll be continuing to press Apple and Google for answers so please check back.