The UK is changing its mind on its coronavirus contact tracing app. Going forward, the UK will use the Apple and Google API, BBC reports. This means rather than use a “centralized” model as planned, the UK will adopt the “decentralized” approach that’s been gaining traction across Europe.
Contact tracing apps exchange keys between phones and alert users if they were in close proximity to someone who reports a positive COVID-19 test result. They essentially come in two flavors: centralized, in which the contact tracing occurs in a server, and decentralized, in which it occurs on a device.
The UK initially said it would use the centralized approach in order to provide researchers with more data, which could be used to better fight the virus. The National Health Service (NHS) even began piloting an app on the Isle of Wight.
At the Downing Street briefing, the health secretary said the government would not “put a date” on when the new app may be launched, although officials conceded it was likely to be in the autumn or winter.
The idea behind the NHS app was that it could trace anybody that a person with coronavirus symptoms came into close contact with by using the Bluetooth connectivity on a standard smartphone, and notify them to self-isolate.
Ministers had insisted on using a centralised version of the untested technology in which anonymised data from people who reported feeling ill was held in an NHS database to enable better tracing and data analysis. This version was not supported by Apple and Google.
Like the UK, Germany originally planned to use the centralized framework but then switched to the decentralized approach after Apple refused to change an iPhone setting that would have allowed the app to run in the foreground. It’s unclear if the UK’s app would have required that same change. As the BBC notes, the UK’s reversal comes one day after news broke that a former Apple exec, Simon Thompson, is taking charge of the project.
While the framework will change, the user interface on the UK contract tracing app will reportedly remain the same. We don’t know yet when it will arrive. The government previously said it plans to bring the app to all of England. Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales still have to agree to the initiative.
