Ireland Launches COVID-19 App That Uses Apple/Google Exposure Notification API

[manu chao]

Why is the immediate reaction that (a) government has to build this, (b) government has to approve this, and (c) people aren't able to decide for themselves to run it (or not) without someone forcing or cajoling them to do so?

Why not enable anyone anywhere to use a Apple (or Google) sample app to do tracking?

No need to governments to do anything, just Apple, or Google provide an app and let people use it. I'd use it in a second. I trust Apple to protect my privacy more than Google, Biden, Trump, Clinton, Macron, Merkel, Morrison, Xi, etc.

And who would issue verification codes for a positive test? Should Apple and Google set up a system of accredited labs? Should Apple and Google run the server that holds the random IDs of people with positive test results?

One can argue that Apple and Google should have provided a template app that governments would just have needed to slap their name on.
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PSA: The Irish app works in the UK!

Download and use until the UK one arrives, and share to your contacts ASAP! No Ireland-specific content is required to setup, and it's available on the UK iOS App Store:

In general, all these apps can work globally, at least if the issuer of the app makes them available in other countries' app stores (which can be a legal issue in some countries, the German app, for example, requires some certification that the countries in which the app is available fulfil some legal criteria).

But, what limits the usefulness of this that currently, is that only Irish labs can issue the verification codes that work in the Irish app. Irish residents that travel to the UK can thus still profit from running the app there in regard to them being around other Irish residents there (certainly would make sense on ferries to the UK and probably also in Northern Ireland).

There is work to link the national databases/servers of random IDs from people with positive tests within the EU (incl. most likely also Switzerland, maybe Norway as well, I don't know) by some time in August. I think this also requires some changes by Apple and Google. But that won't help people in countries that don't follow the Apple/Google approach (though nothing would stop countries from doing both a centralised approach and a decentralised one).

 

[jimthing]

And who would issue verification codes for a positive test? Should Apple and Google set up a system of accredited labs? Should Apple and Google run the server that holds the random IDs of people with positive test results?

One can argue that Apple and Google should have provided a template app that governments would just have needed to slap their name on.
[automerge]1594559050[/automerge]

In general, all these apps can work globally, at least if the issuer of the app makes them available in other countries' app stores (which can be a legal issue in some countries, the German app, for example, requires some certification that the countries in which the app is available fulfil some legal criteria).

But, what limits the usefulness of this that currently, is that only Irish labs can issue the verification codes that work in the Irish app. Irish residents that travel to the UK can thus still profit from running the app there in regard to them being around other Irish residents there (certainly would make sense on ferries to the UK and probably also in Northern Ireland).

There is work to link the national databases/servers of random IDs from people with positive tests within the EU (incl. most likely also Switzerland, maybe Norway as well, I don't know) by some time in August. I think this also requires some changes by Apple and Google. But that won't help people in countries that don't follow the Apple/Google approach (though nothing would stop countries from doing both a centralised approach and a decentralised one).

I suppose the main question is, if you're a UK (or maybe even more specifically Northern Ireland) resident, can you get a code from the Irish app reporting team to add to the app to report you're positive?
This reason this remains unclarified, is because the Irish app allows any global mobile number on setup, not just Irish ones, so why do they do that if you cannot report outside Ireland. They don't make it clear in the app either, unfortunately...?

 

[CarlJ]

This reason this remains unclarified, is because the Irish app allows any global mobile number on setup, not just Irish ones, so why do they do that if you cannot report outside Ireland.

Presumably because one could live in Ireland while maintaining a non-Ireland phone number. They want to provide exposure notification to anyone in Ireland, regardless of where their phone is registered.

I live in one corner of the US (Southern California). I have friends in the same city who have phone numbers from the extreme opposite corner of the country (upstate New York, about 3700km/2300miles away), simply because they never changed them when they moved (too many places they‘d have to update). I wouldn’t want/expect an app for California to require a California area code.

 

[manu chao]

I suppose the main question is, if you're a UK (or maybe even more specifically Northern Ireland) resident, can you get a code from the Irish app reporting team to add to the app to report you're positive?
This reason this remains unclarified, is because the Irish app allows any global mobile number on setup, not just Irish ones, so why do they do that if you cannot report outside Ireland. They don't make it clear in the app either, unfortunately...?

Because why not? There are expats in Ireland that might have a non-Irish mobile phone contract (thanks to EU roaming). Even tourists can profit from the app in the form of getting exposure notifications.

It is a fundamental principle of the Apple/Google System that national health authorities are the gatekeepers. They alone are able to create apps using the APIs, they are responsible for ensuring that only people who really have tested positive can upload their random anonymous indentifiers. Their app (and their server) has to have a way to verify a test result. Which is done via labs getting accredited (or directly being part of the national health authority), generating codes of some sort that are entered into the app which the app then verifies by interfacing with the national health authority.

So how does a British lab generate such codes that the Irish app can verify? Without a formal agreement between the Irish authorities and most likely the NHS, that cannot happen. And would the NHS make such a cooperation a priority while they still don’t have their own ‘contact tracing’ app?

Sure, somebody testing positive in the UK could still get tested again in Ireland to get around that (but that wouldn’t be compatible with quarantining).