Well done, NHS: you've found the place where Google draws the line on privacy.
You know you’ve crossed a line on privacy when even Google blocks your COVID tracing app … well done, NHS.
The UK government’s COVID tracing app has been blocked on the Google and Apple stores due to privacy violations. LOL.
This is that Google, the biggest harvester of consumer data in the history of mankind. (Apple’s privacy record is actually pretty strong, according to our resident tech nerd.)
The NHS originally commissioned Apple and Google to build the COVID contract tracing app, but a software update was seen as violating the privacy rules laid down by the two companies.
Under the original app design, people would scan QR codes as they entered restaurants and bars and the location data record would be held locally on their phone.
If a venue was alerted about a COVID-positive visitor, this location and time data was sent to each phone and cross-referenced against the personal data to see if there was a match (in fancy tech terms: the Exposure Notification API).
Under the planned app update, this process was simplified and people who tested positive to COVID-19 were asked if the app could upload and share their personal data.
The NHS thought this would be ok because they asked for active consent, according to The Guardian.
But Google and Apple considered this to be a violation of the principle of decentralisation, whereby location data for the population was never centralised in one place.
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