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Scotland Launches Contact Tracing App With Apple and Google API
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I live in Scotland and the first I hear of it is via Macrumors. Good work government.
Let's not forgot though, you may be devolved, but England and Wales are really a single entity. 😜
Lets all remember the embarrassment of our failed app south of the border.... 😐
Wales does have its own NHS (GIG in Welsh). It is in a position to choose to launch an app.
And I am not in the least convinced that an app from NHS in England would even work for Wales (depending on whether they have even realised that there could be issues and addressed them). We might actually need our own.
Northern Ireland, meanwhile, has had its own app for some time now, which they got by cooperation with the Republic of Ireland and the company which developed the application. Also used in Gibraltar.
It was announced on the Scotsman before it was posted on macrumors around 8am and has over 200,000 downloads before the FM's daily brief.
Yup. Gotta stay on top of that suuuuuper deadly cold.
It'S oNlY a CoLd
The first attempt at a UK/England app wasn’t based around the anonymised Google/Apple API, and it’s primary use & purpose appeared to be sucking up as much user data as possible to be stored centrally for analysis. And by analysis, I mean for data mining and exploitation by the friends of Johnson’s special advisor. I’d like credit for remaining civil about him and his MO.
That original effort, costing who knows how much, was junked and started again with the Google/Apple API. The great thing about the English app not having been released yet is that Johnson, Hancock & co can ascribe any quality they like to it (World beating! World leading!) and no one can authoritatively disprove it. Given that the Scottish government has proportionately way less resources to commit to the creation of this app than the UK government has with its app, that Scotland has got a working app available for widespread public use whilst the UK government is still chest beating over its is quite damning for the UK gov.
With flu season about to start, the need to test individuals to distinguish between seasonal flu and Covid-19 and then Effectively trace the latter, the UK/English app is needed now, not once the flu cranks up and COVID infections with it and both have to be handled in line with the latter (lockdowns, quarantining, selective hospital admission etc).
LOL. Scotland couldn't run a bath without Westminster providing the cash. £15billion public purse deficit last year, and I shudder to think what things would have been like had we voted for independence in 2014.
Even with the current level of funding, Scotlands public services are getting worse and worse - and it's certainly not Westminster to blame.
Also, the Scottish tracing app was originally by Northern Ireland - NHS Scotland were offered it, and just re-branded it. Good that it was delivered either way, this is a good step forward.
If we voted for independence in 2014 we would have been getting our deficit under control to join the EU. When there is a goal to work towards, people tend to pull together and do it. I don't believe anyone truly believes that being independent will be a walk in the park nor that it would just be impossible. Some would benefit like myself, some would be worse off or the same like those on JSA and low incomes, but in the end, a lot of people would work to make it a success because you need your country to be a success.
And if the app is developed by NI... isn't that a good thing? Sounds like great value for money.
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My childhood friend died of COVID on May 4. Contracted the virus via the hospital's HVAC system. Went into the hospital to deliver her 4th baby. Left 44 days later in a coffin. Be respectful.Yup. Gotta stay on top of that suuuuuper deadly cold.
Definitely a good thing - just that once again, Scotland benefited from being in the UK.
And I agree that we would have given it a good shot, but being able to see just how wrong the Scottish government were with their projections (notably oil prices) shows how big a bullet we dodged. Maybe we can be independent one day, but it shouldn't be anytime soon (at least until said deficit is under control, and we've paid off our chunk of national debt).
Let's apply the "work towards a new goal" idea to moving on from no longer being in the EU. 😜
We can't really apply that to being out the the EU, we are cut off from our friends, family, new workers(It is very hard to recruit just now as EU nationals are comfortable coming over). But frankly it isn't a discussion for here and will be talked about extensively in the coming year once we get the global pandemic behind us and can get politics back to working on what they where voted in for.
So your comments in the earlier thread about Scotland taking its time to get the app right to be the best it can be, to include Gaelic as well as Polish etc. have turned out to be true? Guess you might as well launch a complaint with the developers as they appear to have spelt Gaelic and Polish wrong, they've spelt it as English only!
Seriously, I applaud people for seeking wanting things to be good all the time, seeing the positives rather than negatives, but you cannot disguise the fact that this app should've been out MONTHS ago. All it is. is a a reskinned version of the API.
It's ludicrous and there's no logical reason it took this length of time and with private companies taking cash to develop it.
All I see is issue. You have to register that you've been diagnosed with Covid for it to be any use - 'cause that ain't going to be open to abuse with loads false readings flying about all over the place? I can see it now - couple of jakies ticking the box for a laugh, Scotland will be off the charts for positive cover cases in record time! & of course, you'll prob reply that's it's better to have false readings than positive ones, I'm guessing the economy would beg to differ.
A Vote for Independence in 2014 would've opened the floodgates for Scotgov to spend before figuring out where the cash was coming from. At the moment there are significant devolved powers not being utilised by Scotgov as it suits their political mantra to blame stuff on Westminster.
The record of the SNP in government is astonishing. They can't build 2 boats on time and under budget or run an airport effectively, let alone be trusted with a country.
Indpendence for all its perceived merits is bogged down with an agenda with those in power for self-serving political gain.
It's selfish & irresponsible to consider that when it all goes to pot, it will be of our 'own' doing and not that of Westminster, so that makes it all ok.
As for your NI, I'm assuming you mean National Insurance? Think you need to read up on that.
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Individuals cannot self-certify/flag themselves as positive, to cover this exact eventuality of people ‘ticking the box for a laugh’.
From https://www.gov.scot/news/protect-scotland-app-launches/
Unless the construction of valid codes is easily predictable, or the means of generating valid codes is compromised, people will have to test positive AND be sent a valid code AND subsequently enter it AND give consent for their positive status to be used.
As with all other deployments of the API, the only tested-positive cases going into the system will be in the country in question - Scotland in this case - if you use this app elsewhere, it will inform you if you’ve been near people who subsequently tested positive in Scotland, (because that’s where the database and reporting infrastructure are) - it won’t tell you about exposures to people in your city, unless that city is in Scotland, or if someone from Scotland came to your city, exposed you, went home to Scotland, and then tested positive, in Scotland. So, a little helpful to you, but not very.
Do you have any proof that they’ve implemented it this way, breaking all the recommendations, or are you just speculating wildly because it supports your narrative?
The normal and recommended practice is that there is no box to tick - instead, if you test positive, you are issued a one-time code. You enter that code into the app, and that (and only that) causes the app to send your anonymous identifiers up to the central database. And the one-time codes aren’t 1, 2, 3, 4..., they’re generated cryptographically in order to be near impossible to guess.
Sure, could type in a million of them by hand, and maybe get lucky, but presumably the app will start adding increasingly long delays between invalid entries (just like the iPhone does with passcodes), so, if you’ve got a few hundred years to devote to your life’s passion of getting one wrong entry into the database, then maybe you'll be successful. But that’s quite a bit different from what you’re claiming, isn’t it?
The underlying API provides all the plumbing. It has to interact with a database at the top level. That database is controlled on a state or national level, by the government - the same people in charge of certifying COVID testing stations and labs, who are the ones empowered by the government to hand out the one-time codes to those who test positive. Entering one of these (state/nation specific) codes is the only way to report positive test results in the app, which will send your anonymous identifiers up to the database. Other users of the app periodically download the database (from their state/nation) - or rather their app does, on its own - and if their app/phone has been in close contact with any of those identifiers, then they get an exposure notification.
So, it’s country specific because of the top level database. But, of course, countries can choose to share/combine their databases - and for neighboring countries that would be a great idea - but that has to happen at the political/diplomatic level. The alternative would be for Apple to take over some aspects of healthcare for the entire world. How do you think that would go over?
Sorry I missed that part, it was pure speculation on my part, just saw the earlier screenshot & 2+2 got 5!
👍And here I thought the EU was mismanaged with every state developing their own app. The UK really beats us to it... developing multiple apps...
Meanwhile in England Boris Johnson and his cabal of incompetent gangsters scrapped their contact tracing app because it didn't work, despite him telling everyone it was their "civic duty" (comical coming from him) to download it.
At this point even if they did ever manage to release one I wouldn't download it. NHSX in England isn't really part of the NHS at all, it's a company run by a friend of Dominic Cummings and the contract was awarded without tender. If you're comfortable with letting something Cummings has had a hand in on your phone then you need help. Frankly I'd rather throw my phone out of the window than let anything Tory onto it.
At this point even if they did ever manage to release one I wouldn't download it. NHSX in England isn't really part of the NHS at all, it's a company run by a friend of Dominic Cummings and the contract was awarded without tender. If you're comfortable with letting something Cummings has had a hand in on your phone then you need help. Frankly I'd rather throw my phone out of the window than let anything Tory onto it.
And FM has said that marketing will start tomorrow. So I expect we’ll be seeing a lot more of it soon.
Gimmicky, waste of government money, and full of privacy concerns. Sounds great..