From The Telegraph’s “Apple and Google block NHS contact-tracing app update over privacy concerns” posted Monday:
A crucial update to the NHS contact-tracing app has been blocked by Apple and Google after the government broke the terms of agreement it made with the tech giants.
The update, due to have been rolled out on Monday to coincide with the re-opening of the economy, would have allowed users who tested positive for Covid-19 to upload a log of all the times they had scanned a QR code when entering venues.
This QR code could then be used to anonymously warn others if they had visited the same venue at the same time.
But such a feature has been banned by Apple and Google, which provide the software that runs the NHS Covid-19 app in England and Wales.
When it launched, the government had to sign up to an agreement that said the app would “not share location data from the user’s device with the public health authority, Apple or Google”.
The app still works, but the latest features, which were touted by the Government last week, are not yet available, the BBC reported.
My take: Frustrating. But in the current climate — when Bill Gates is a QAnon meme — nobody needs another excuse not to get vaccinated.
But if UK Health Service agreed to the rules, they’re obligated to follow them. (In the US at least, it would be my understanding of federal contracting laws that would be a formal legal obligation.)
It’s not a different take, it’s the sound of one hand clapping. The author refuses to acknowledge the real issue; privacy.
He mentions other parts of the world where contract tracing works, but neglects to mention that it works on Android only, a not insignificant issue. And so on.
At least he admits his bias (he’s personally tried to get apps through the App Store that
ran afoul of Apple’s rules), although he doesn’t seem to be aware of it as bias….
Privacy has a price. That’s the discussion that should be taking place.
“The fact that the UK government remains too stupid to understand…”
I don’t think it’s about intelligence. I used to, but I’ve seen too many really intelligent people put their brains on hold to buy into that any more.
We still live on a planet where otherwise-sane people are joining the Flat Earth Society, and are convinced the US never landed on the Moon 50+ years ago. At a certain point, you have to assign this refusal to acknowledge reality to either willful ignorance or mass brainwashing.
Thank the Maker for Apple 3.0, an island of reason and sanity, and thanks to Apple, PED, and all the reasonable and sane members herein, for making it possible.
Mueller used to write reasonably well, even when expressing his views. Now, though, it seems he’s just flaming away whenever he doesn’t agree with some aspect of an “opponent” position.
Sometimes it’s an inability, sometimes it’s a refusal. Some refuse to allow themselves to believe that the opposition may actually be rational.
Also when you surround yourself with like-minded friends (or websites, news sources, etc), you begin to see your assumptions as ‘obvious’ facts, making it easier to label others as irrational.