The United Kingdom prefers to ultimately be the solution to Apple and Google for its application tracing

After months of procrastination, the british government eventually waive the application of tracing of contacts developed by its own health services. It should be out before 2021 a new application based on the model proposed by Apple and Google and put at the disposal of the authorities all over the world.

The ministry of Health explained that it had compared the two systems, which both work with the Bluetooth technology, the last month with 140 000 inhabitants of the isle of Wight. The application british could recognize 75% of Android phones in the vicinity, but only 4% of iPhones. In comparison, the technology of both GAFA and reached a recognition rate of 99%, regardless of the model. "The software Apple prevents iPhones from being used effectively for follow-up contacts unless you use the proprietary technology of Apple. Apple does not want to change its system," complained the Health minister, Matt Hancock, before adding: "But what counts is what works. Because this walk will save lives".

The uk government now provides a new application that will use the model of Apple and Google, while maintaining the "strong points" of the version that he had initially planned. Two days ago, a member of the government has nevertheless argued that the application of the tracing was no longer "a priority" and that its deployment would not be active before the fall, or even the end of the year. To recall, the United Kingdom is the country with the highest number of victims of the Covid-19 in Europe, with more than 42,000 dead now for more than 300,000 confirmed cases officially.

Two models preclude

such As Germany, Denmark or Italy, the United Kingdom joined the countries that have adopted a "decentralized" for their application tracing. In this architecture, the smartphone regularly import the list of all the nicknames that have cross-infected persons, and check themselves if the username of the user appears on these lists or not. The data are stored in the smartphones and the server is only used for the approximation of the ids anonymized.

conversely, with an option for "centralized", the smartphone user will check on a central server that the pseudonym is not in the list of pseudonyms crusaders, by a person being declared contaminated. If this model is considered less secure, it allows epidemiologists to obtain more data to fight the epidemic. With the abandonment of the United Kingdom, France is now the only country in Europe to have retained this configuration, which should prove to be problematic in relation to the progressive reopening of the borders. StopCovid cannot interact with the applications that use the model that Apple / Google, which is held by the majority of european countries.

generally, many countries struggle to offer an application of tracing effective, privacy friendly and widely adopted by the population. Only 1.7 million of French have downloaded StopCovid in two weeks (a little over 2% of the population), far short of the 60% figure often quoted for an optimal result. Norway, for its part, was forced to suspend its application, deemed too intrusive. As for Singapore, in view of its lukewarm reception, the mobile application will gradually be replaced by bracelets connected.

The editorial team conseilleStopCovid: just two million users in two semainesApplication StopCovid : France can it really happen to Apple ?"Screen Capture N°8: StopCovid, discord franco-françaiseSujetsCoronavirusRoyaume-uniApplications Of TraçageAucun comment

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