What a fabric. When governments get in the way, sparks always fly between the privacy of users that Apple defends above all else, and the will of the states of all countries in break that privacy "For the good of the Nation."
As Tim Cook announced a few days ago, tomorrow the Joint API between Apple and Google of contact tracing to warn of possible infections by Covid-19. Finally, the British NHS health system will not use it. You prefer to have such contacts centralized on a server under your control.
El UK National Health Service (NHS) has rejected the use of upcoming contact tracing technology from Apple and Google, in favor of its own national system. Unlike the API developed between Apple and Google, the NHS application will see iPhones and Android phones continuously, reporting to a central database that depends on the British government, controlling all that data at will, no matter how much they want to deny it.
The system NHSX, the technology advisory group of the National Health Service, will operate via Bluetooth. It will log when two devices are close enough together for longer than an unspecified amount of time and transmit that information to the central database, where that information will be stored.
In return, the system designed by Apple and Google will allow contact tracing to take place without an application having to be started or activated. For privacy reasons, the two American giants also plan to carry out actual contact tracing. on each individual's device, so that the data is not transmitted to the servers of a single company, with the risk that this implies.
NHSX maintains that it will be able to audit the data, and adapt the system more quickly, if all this information is kept on their servers. "It's probably easier to do it with a centralized system," NHSX adviser Professor Christophe Fraser told the BBC. And obviously, the British government is in control of all that information.
The NHSX plan has reportedly been assisted by experts from the GCHQ National Cybersecurity Center, although NCSC told the BBC that it has only advised on technology. The BBC notes that Apple and Google have supported the British team, and the NHSX statement itself repeats this. "We are working with Apple and Google on their welcome support to track applications around the world," he says.
NHSX says it will launch its app "in the next few weeks," while Apple and Google apparently plan to launch theirs on April 28.
As always, the governments involved and having no idea of technology, how easy it is to be a government advisor