In major U-turn, UK abandons its own coronavirus-tracing app approach and shifts to the model based on the technology provided by Google and Apple

In a major U-turn, the UK is ditching the way its current coronavirus-tracing app works and shifting to a model based on technology provided by Apple and Google.

BBC 2020-06-18 Leo Kelion

Context & Ripple Effects

When the NHS unveiled its centralized contact-tracing app in April, it argued that routing data through a central server would give health officials more insight into COVID-19's spread than Apple and Google's tools allowed. That bet put the UK at odds with Germany, which weeks earlier had abandoned its own home-grown design in favor of the same Apple-Google decentralized framework.

Today's U-turn ends that standoff: the UK drops the centralized architecture it defended and rebuilds on the platform vendors' model — leaving Germany's choice looking like the template rather than the exception.

First-order effects

NHS/NHSX must scrap the app it has been piloting and re-engineer around Apple and Google's exposure-notification API, resetting the deployment timeline it had been racing toward since April.

Second-order effects

Apple and Google are now the de facto standards-setters for national contact tracing: any government wanting a centralized design must either accept reduced functionality on iOS/Android or build against the platforms' wishes, as both the UK and Germany have learned.

Third-order effects

If this pattern holds, OS-level privacy constraints set by two US platform companies become the binding architecture for European public-health software — a structural ceding of sovereign data-collection capability, even as the broader contact-tracing-app effort itself fades from the spotlight later in the year.

The trend: National governments are abandoning bespoke centralized contact-tracing architectures in favor of Apple and Google's decentralized API, making platform vendors the de facto architects of pandemic-era public-health tech.

Discussion

@dansabbagh Dan Sabbagh on x
The now ditched NHS X app was picking up 4% of Apple phones. It didn't work and was never going to work. Yet, the government tried and tried. Officials won't disclose how much money was spent flogging this unfortunate horse https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
@jimmy_wales Jimmy Wales on x
If the NHS will to support it, I could roll out the German Corona-Warn-App (privacy respecting, official diagnosis rather than self-reporting as I understand it) in short time at zero cost to the taxpayers. If the government can't pull themselves together, we can. Please RT.
@alexhern Alex Hern on x
the face saving line is “actually both the approaches are bad” https://www.gov.uk/...
@markscott82 Mark Scott on x
Love it how Brits are framing their decision to switch to @google/@apple #coronavirus app after months of technical glitches as an example of how UK is leading the way of test-and-trace worldwide. https://twitter.com/...
@helenwarrell Helen Warrell on x
When we first reported this, officials told us they were just doing due diligence on the Apple/Google system. Six weeks later, this “back-up project” has become the new UK contact-tracing app https://twitter.com/...
@tim Tim Bradshaw on x
who could have possibly predicted today's shocking u-turn https://twitter.com/...
@mattwridley Matt Ridley on x
Some of us saw this coming and urged the NHS to do this weeks ago after it made the same mistake with tracing. Why this ideological obsession with not sourcing things from the private sector? https://twitter.com/...
@alexhern Alex Hern on x
I was three weeks off https://twitter.com/...
@alexhern Alex Hern on x
Almost exactly two months ago, we reported that the contact tracing app would not work unless the Apple and Google model was adopted and that the government was trying to pressure Apple to give it a special exemption https://www.theguardian.com/ ...
@petehotchkiss Pete Hotchkiss on x
Somebody has made a absolute packet out of this utter failure of an exercise. Anyone with two brain cells saw this coming 3 months ago https://www.bbc.com/...
@lynnedixon14 Lynne Dixon on x
https://www.bbc.com/... Another u turn, another, day, another cock up. Do Cummings pals that were paid for original app get to keep their Millions? You bet!
@rupertmyers Rupert Myers on x
UK virus-tracing app switches to Google-Apple model, two months after rejecting those companies and battling on with our own. https://www.bbc.com/...
@juliahb1 Julia Hartley-Brewer on x
Which one is the “world beating app”, can anyone remind me? This is a HUGE embarrassment for the Government. We should have had a tracing app MONTHS ago to help us get out of lockdown. https://twitter.com/...
@fs0c131y Elliot Alderson on x
France is officially the only European country with a contact tracing app based on a centralized model *slow clap* https://twitter.com/...
@hthjones Henry Jones on x
And in the least surprising news today, the UK government discovers that tech companies are better at doing tech than it is. https://twitter.com/...
@jonworth Jon Worth on x
The tone of this from the BBC. “Late running” is about the only hint of the fiasco this has been in the UK. And it's not the centralised or not problem (or not only) it's that the UK's initial approach was fantastically badly thought out! https://www.bbc.com/...
@liberal_reform @liberal_reform on x
First testing facilities, now this, why is it taking the UK government so long to work out that the private sector can be an ally in the battle against covid? https://www.bbc.com/...
@edconwaysky Ed Conway on x
The story of UK #COVID19 policy in three acts Act 1: Yes other countries are doing it one way but we've got a better plan Act 2: Yes our plan is tricky, yes other countries think we're crazy, but good old British hard work and ingenuity will save the day Act 3: https://twitter.co…
@kevhowson @kevhowson on x
Another £250m spaffed up the wall. Or is that spaffed into the ever open wallet of their mates. Worse still, months of dev and test work wasted and still no working app which has to be a core component of any removal of lockdown. Absolute cabinet of clowns. https://twitter.com/..…
@jimwaterson Jim Waterson on x
UK government wanted one approach, Google and Apple wanted another, guess which turned out to be more powerful. https://www.bbc.co.uk/...
@angelaeagle Angela Eagle on x
This Govt move seemlessly from one fiasco of incompetence to another It's the only thing they're any good at https://twitter.com/...
@davidschneider David Schneider on x
Who could have predicted that a government that got it so wrong on going into lockdown and PPE and protecting care homes and testing and getting kids back to school and everything else would have got it so wrong on the track and trace app. https://www.bbc.co.uk/...
@benpbradshaw Ben Bradshaw on x
What an unmitigated shambles of a Government! The Foreign Secretary doesn't understand what kneeling means & they're now scrapping their #COVID19 app, promised by May, not ready till winter, for the app rest of Europe is already using successfully - having wasted vital time & £s.…
@pippacrerar Pippa Crerar on x
Another U-turn: this time on the coronavirus tracing app. Ministers were urged to sign up to this model from the start. How much quicker could we have got control of the pandemic if we had? https://www.bbc.co.uk/...

Chronicles