Contact tracing, a rant

[groom]

I don't see that a smart phone is a necessary accessory to a normal life.

Most younger people use their smart phones rather than laptops or tablets. None of my younger relatives bother with anything other than their phones, they access everything through it, so to them, it is a necessary accessory.

[John915]

My concerns are two fold -

1 - I don't like the idea of being tracked. It is nobody's business, except mine and my wife's, where I go and how long I spent there. 

2 - I do not trust the Government to switch off the tracking when this is all over. 

What a useful tool for the police next time a crime is committed, why would they want to give that up? And then how soon will some innocent person be arrested for a crime they did not commit. "You were right on the spot, you must be involved". "The innocent have nothing to fear" has been proved a thousand times to be nothing more than a cruel joke. 

Regards 

Chas

Good evening,

If you decide to use this app you would have to switch on "location" in your settings. The government, police or any other agency can not do this for you nor can they switch it off again. You do that that as well in your settings, assuming you have a smart phone. Many people already have that option switched on because quite a few apps use it.

John915

[Roobarb]

To add to the above, on my phone you can control locations settings for each app individually in location settings, I think this is pretty common if not universal.

[Mike in Cumbria]

The app doesn't trace where you are, or where you have been.
The government can not use it to know whether you have left your house, or where you have been
No data is stored.

All it does is highlight whether you have been close to someone who later self-reports as having symptoms of COVID19 so that you can take appropriate action. It's optional, too. Nobody has to use it who doesn't want to.

As a sneaky way of the government keeping tabs on us, it's a pretty useless design.

[John915]

Back again,

It can only tell if you have been nr someone who has the virus if they know where at least one of you is located.

John915

[Mike in Cumbria]

Back again,

It can only tell if you have been nr someone who has the virus if they know where at least one of you is located.

John915

Yes, but it works by bluetooth technology, not GPS. It records the fact that you are in proximity, but not where you are.

[jillruss]

I suspect that the whole exercise will be a waste of time and prove yet again that our leaders are clueless.

The only way out of lockdown is to come out and see what happens or wait for either a vaccine or an effective medicine. We would never have gone into lockdown in the first place if the NHS had been maintained at a level to function adequately and if successive governments had taken any notice of warnings that social care was being neglected to the point of near- extinction. Even after the virus is (if it ever is) brought under control, I doubt that anything will change.

I said at the start of all this that we should expect the NHS to protect us, not for us to have to protect the NHS because its been so badly funded and is top heavy with overpaid bureaucrats.

One other point: 26,000 deaths is tragic in any circumstances but according to the ONS there were an estimated 23,200 'excess winter deaths' in 2018/19 and that was 'significantly lower' than the two previous years. You have to question whether we've unnecessarily backed ourselves into a corner and whether lockdown was ever the answer.

[John915]

As I understand it, the bluetooth only tells them who was close to to a sufferer. But bluetooth is very close range so  they need your location as well othereise it's pointless.

Only works anyway if your bluetooth is on. I don't use it but do have location switched on for maps.

John915

[Mike in Cumbria]

.