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I work in part for the NHS, and have been told to turn off the app while in the hospital. In part, I think this is because they are scared of the effect that fa

I work in part for the NHS, and have been told to turn off the app while in the hospital. In part, I think this is because they are scared of the effect that false positives will have on (already precarious) staffing numbers (just like the police -- which, owing to austerity, are horrendously under-manned). That being said, I haven't installed the app. I know I "should", but I just do not trust it. I've completely and utterly lost all faith in the government, and although I have the .apk executable sitting in my downloads folder just waiting for me to disassemble it and read through it myself, I haven't yet. It's almost as if decades of sophisticated spying and "dark practices" have conditioned the entirety of the UK to not trust their government, or something. I use a VPN (or three) at home, tor where appropriate, and root my phone and cut out the Google dial-home. It's a very big ask to get me to install a government-developed application. I just have a deep, probably irrational, fear of it watching everything I do.

gerdesj 6y ago
"... have been told to turn off the app while in the hospital." (This is for England only, I have no idea what the rest of the UK is up to) The algorithm the app uses is pretty simple and in your case would be going off like a siren nearly daily. It announces itself in the vicinity via bluetooth and listens for similar announcements. Each device has a random, self generated ID and this is changed regularly. If someone gets a positive test and reports via the app then their ID at the time is sent out. Apps will compare their list of known IDs and times they were seen with the positive list. Basically if your app decides that it saw a "positive" ID for something like 15 minutes or more then it will flag it to you. Then it is up to you whether to isolate, get tested etc. It is not an offence to ignore the app but it is if you ignore an official Check and Trace operative. This is why you are told not to use it at work. The algorithm is designed to work for people going about "normal" life and your life in the NHS is not normal. It can't possibly work for you or my cousin working as a matron in a hospital. The algorithm basically measures exposure and the current thinking is that 15 mins is long enough to flag a warning. So don't stop and chat for ages in the supermarket/park/pub or whatever to your mates - say hi and use a phone later. If you do go to a pub or restaurant then you have to accept that there is a risk. If you are worried about the sign in QR code thing not having a sign out until midnight, you can create your own home "sign in" to do the same job. See https://www.gov.uk/create-coronavirus-qr-poster https://www.gov.uk/create-coronavirus-qr-poster . There is no need for conspiracy theories! The source code is on Github so no need to mess with the apk. You may want to check that the source generates the .apk though. I'm not a fan of some things that have been done here but the new app is the right way to do it in my opinion. It's very, very simple and has no personally identifiable data involved. It's basically one simple rule of thumb that is good enough to semi-automate part of the C&T function. It is not good enough for your trade though and you should not use it at work. Stay safe.

gerdesj 6y ago

"... have been told to turn off the app while in the hospital." (This is for England only, I have no idea what the rest of the UK is up to) The algorithm the app uses is pretty simple and in your case would be going off like a siren nearly daily. It announces itself in the vicinity via bluetooth and listens for similar announcements. Each device has a random, self generated ID and this is changed regularly. If someone gets a positive test and reports via the app then their ID at the time is sent out. Apps will compare their list of known IDs and times they were seen with the positive list. Basically if your app decides that it saw a "positive" ID for something like 15 minutes or more then it will flag it to you. Then it is up to you whether to isolate, get tested etc. It is not an offence to ignore the app but it is if you ignore an official Check and Trace operative. This is why you are told not to use it at work. The algorithm is designed to work for people going about "normal" life and your life in the NHS is not normal. It can't possibly work for you or my cousin working as a matron in a hospital. The algorithm basically measures exposure and the current thinking is that 15 mins is long enough to flag a warning. So don't stop and chat for ages in the supermarket/park/pub or whatever to your mates - say hi and use a phone later. If you do go to a pub or restaurant then you have to accept that there is a risk. If you are worried about the sign in QR code thing not having a sign out until midnight, you can create your own home "sign in" to do the same job. See https://www.gov.uk/create-coronavirus-qr-poster https://www.gov.uk/create-coronavirus-qr-poster . There is no need for conspiracy theories! The source code is on Github so no need to mess with the apk. You may want to check that the source generates the .apk though. I'm not a fan of some things that have been done here but the new app is the right way to do it in my opinion. It's very, very simple and has no personally identifiable data involved. It's basically one simple rule of thumb that is good enough to semi-automate part of the C&T function. It is not good enough for your trade though and you should not use it at work. Stay safe.