NHS App

[didds]

If anyone can tell me how the app might protect me I will of course download it.

presumably your domestic brioadband+wifi would work - at least for receiving an alert if/when it was identified. And presumably also for uploading of where you may have been etc as said phone app AIUI doesnt need 3/4/5G and/or wifi at that moment in time.

??

didds

[PinkDalek]

Bug “fixed”?:

NHS Covid app updated to 'fix' phantom messages https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-54522438

The answer being no, not really.

[PinkDalek]

And for those that do, but don't, is there a summary of the result?

Somewhat early days, with only 5 votes when I last looked.

Doubt they'll pull in more than a million votes.

Edit: Poll runs till 12 Oct 2020 19:57 Remind me after then to take a look.

Remembered to look, the (closed) TLF Poll at PD results show, fwiiw:

I will (or already have) 20 42%
I won't 14 29%
I don't know (or can't) 14 29%

[Nimrod103]

And for those that do, but don't, is there a summary of the result?

Somewhat early days, with only 5 votes when I last looked.

Doubt they'll pull in more than a million votes.

Edit: Poll runs till 12 Oct 2020 19:57 Remind me after then to take a look.

Remembered to look, the (closed) TLF Poll at PD results show, fwiiw:

I will (or already have) 20 42%
I won't 14 29%
I don't know (or can't) 14 29%

There should have been an option for 'I have downloaded the app, but now deleted it, because it drains the battery so much my phone is dead by lunchtime'.

[Arborbridge]

There should have been an option for 'I have downloaded the app, but now deleted it, because it drains the battery so much my phone is dead by lunchtime'.

Unfortunate for you, but it wouldn't be the option for me since it doesn't. I don't notice the drain - or at least maybe it does, but not to an embarrassing extent.

[PinkDalek]

There should have been an option for 'I have downloaded the app, but now deleted it, because it drains the battery so much my
phone is dead by lunchtime'.

Except that has been refuted by many on TLF, maybe on this thread but I haven't looked.

[scotia]

There should have been an option for 'I have downloaded the app, but now deleted it, because it drains the battery so much my
phone is dead by lunchtime'.

Except that has been refuted by many on TLF, maybe on this thread but I haven't looked.

I have the Scottish version loaded (introduced before the English version) and I don't notice any drain.

[kiloran]

I have the Scottish version loaded (introduced before the English version) and I don't notice any drain.

I notice a slightly increased drain on my phone with the scottish version. I have bluetooth on as a default, but I normally have GPS switched off to maximise battery life. I guess the NHS app needs location and that is the cause of the increased drain. Noticeable, but nothing too drastic

--kiloran

[AF62]

There should have been an option for 'I have downloaded the app, but now deleted it, because it drains the battery so much my phone is dead by lunchtime'.

Sounds like your phone is faulty.

I notice a slightly increased drain on my phone with the scottish version. I have bluetooth on as a default, but I normally have GPS switched off to maximise battery life. I guess the NHS app needs location and that is the cause of the increased drain. Noticeable, but nothing too drastic

I assume you are aware that unless you have granted background location access to an app then if you don't have any apps active requesting location access then the GPS isn't operational.

So turning the GPS on or off is a waste of time.

[Arborbridge]

I have the Scottish version loaded (introduced before the English version) and I don't notice any drain.

I notice a slightly increased drain on my phone with the scottish version. I have bluetooth on as a default, but I normally have GPS switched off to maximise battery life. I guess the NHS app needs location and that is the cause of the increased drain. Noticeable, but nothing too drastic

--kiloran

I thought I read in the FAQs that the app does not use the GPS. It's only looking at close contact details via bluetooth and doesn't care where you are. If there's a contact, presumably it logs the other phone's number but not location - it wouldn't be required. You could be on Mars for all it cares.
If it came to contact tracing that would be different, but that is done by interview.

PS. I'm deducing this rather than quoting holy writ
Arb.

[zico]

Spoke to a friend who knows someone who downloaded the app and received a phone call to say she had been in a place where someone was infected and so she should take a test.
Then she got another call...and another call. Currently she's had 5 calls a day for the last 4 days, and is getting tired of telling people that she's taken her test as instructed by the first caller.

[Clitheroekid]

I think you might need an i phone 7 or above.

Actually 6s - it's to do with the IOS - if your iphone cannot take IOS 13.5 you cannot apply the app. Something to do with the bluetooth capabilities.

T7

It's more than a little ironic that the people who are most vulnerable to CV - the elderly and the poor - are the least likely to own a phone that can use the app.

[Lanark]

We are picking up positive antibody tests from people who had symptoms back in March.
John

Long term immunity is held in the T-Cells not the antibodies, if they still have active antibodies that would imply they probably got reinfected at some point which triggered a second antibody response.

Given the number of people who have now been tested it is absolutely certain that some false positives and false negatives will creep into the data. The people who have reportedly tested positive twice have in reality probably caught the flu and then later caught covid.

[terminal7]

It's more than a little ironic that the people who are most vulnerable to CV - the elderly and the poor - are the least likely to own a phone that can use the app.

Come come CK - you are asking a lot of a world beating system that cost a meagre £12b.

T7

[kiloran]

I have the Scottish version loaded (introduced before the English version) and I don't notice any drain.

I notice a slightly increased drain on my phone with the scottish version. I have bluetooth on as a default, but I normally have GPS switched off to maximise battery life. I guess the NHS app needs location and that is the cause of the increased drain. Noticeable, but nothing too drastic

--kiloran

I thought I read in the FAQs that the app does not use the GPS. It's only looking at close contact details via bluetooth and doesn't care where you are. If there's a contact, presumably it logs the other phone's number but not location - it wouldn't be required. You could be on Mars for all it cares.
If it came to contact tracing that would be different, but that is done by interview.

PS. I'm deducing this rather than quoting holy writ
Arb.

I'm confused!
I'm sure when I installed it (android version), the app stated that it need to use location information, which I assumed meant GPS.
The FAQ states

The way the Android system handles exposure notifications means that both Bluetooth and location need to be turned on, and the Android system itself notifies you when you turn one or both off, rather than the Protect Scotland app. The onboarding process for Android users includes information about the use of location (it doesn’t use GPS), and the Android version of the app doesn’t have the same ‘tracing inactive’ feature that Apple phones does.

I've no idea what the jargon "onboarding process" means, but I don't understand how it can know location without GPS, although I guess the cell network can provide a relatively crude guide

--kiloran

[chas49]

I've no idea what the jargon "onboarding process" means, but I don't understand how it can know location without GPS, although I guess the cell network can provide a relatively crude guide

--kiloran

The device location setting is required in order to allow Bluetooth to check for other nearby devices with Exposure Notification System(ENS) running - crudely this means other users of the app. The Google description of the API explicitly states "the [ENS] does not use device location. We've prevented public health authority apps usung ENS from requesting access to your device's location"

Onboarding means they told you this (in some form) when you signed up for the app.

It's all a bit convoluted, but the upshot is that the app does not and cannot find out your location either by GPS or by cell tower location. The app has to use 'device location' to locate devices - not to locate your device.....

[UncleEbenezer]

Spoke to a friend who knows someone who downloaded the app and received a phone call to say she had been in a place where someone was infected and so she should take a test.
Then she got another call...and another call. Currently she's had 5 calls a day for the last 4 days, and is getting tired of telling people that she's taken her test as instructed by the first caller.

There was someone on t'wireless this afternoon describing going through test&trace after her offspring tested positive.
She got a lot of calls about different members of her family having been exposed to someone who tested positive, and thought
(a) Wow, it must be rampant out there!
(b) This system is doing pretty well with notifying me of cases.

A few days of these and it twigged: her family members had been near the affected daughter, in the home. The system was chasing its own tail!

[Arborbridge]

Spoke to a friend who knows someone who downloaded the app and received a phone call to say she had been in a place where someone was infected and so she should take a test.
Then she got another call...and another call. Currently she's had 5 calls a day for the last 4 days, and is getting tired of telling people that she's taken her test as instructed by the first caller.

There was someone on t'wireless this afternoon describing going through test&trace after her offspring tested positive.
She got a lot of calls about different members of her family having been exposed to someone who tested positive, and thought
(a) Wow, it must be rampant out there!
(b) This system is doing pretty well with notifying me of cases.

A few days of these and it twigged: her family members had been near the affected daughter, in the home. The system was chasing its own tail!

I think they said they had had 75 calls!

[Arborbridge]

I've no idea what the jargon "onboarding process" means, but I don't understand how it can know location without GPS, although I guess the cell network can provide a relatively crude guide

--kiloran

The device location setting is required in order to allow Bluetooth to check for other nearby devices with Exposure Notification System(ENS) running - crudely this means other users of the app. The Google description of the API explicitly states "the [ENS] does not use device location. We've prevented public health authority apps usung ENS from requesting access to your device's location"

Onboarding means they told you this (in some form) when you signed up for the app.

It's all a bit convoluted, but the upshot is that the app does not and cannot find out your location either by GPS or by cell tower location. The app has to use 'device location' to locate devices - not to locate your device.....

"Onboarding process" - why do these people invent a whole new language and assume we know it. This isn't english, but an offshoot of it.

I guess the derivation is: when you download the app, you take it "onboard" and by running it you agreed to "whatever" - thus the onboarding process is what you did when you allowed it to download and run.

Simple, innit.

[AF62]

I think you might need an i phone 7 or above.

Actually 6s - it's to do with the IOS - if your iphone cannot take IOS 13.5 you cannot apply the app. Something to do with the bluetooth capabilities.

T7

It's more than a little ironic that the people who are most vulnerable to CV - the elderly and the poor - are the least likely to own a phone that can use the app.

The app is not designed to protect any user of it, vulnerable or not.

It is designed to protect the rest of society from the user by telling the user to isolate if they have been in close contact with an infected person or visited a place on the same day as an infected person.

And since it is designed to supplement Test and Trace, if that is working well then no problem as they will be contacted anyway - oh, what are those pink things in the sky?