Apple hits back at Matt Hancock over claims tracing app can't detect distances - Money

Matt Hancock is facing a fresh storm over the failed NHS contact tracing app today as Apple dismissed his claims that its version does not detect distances well.

The tech giant also made clear it had not been consulted over the Health Secretary’s statement last night that they would now work together to develop hybrid software.

The clash came after Mr Hancock humiliatingly admitted that the NHSX app, once hailed by ministers as crucial to ending lockdown, was being abandoned.

The software, originally promised for mid-May, was unable to spot 25 per cent of nearby Android users and a staggering 96 per cent of iPhones in a trial on the Isle of Wight.

Meanwhile, the Apple and Google technology can spot 99 per cent of close contacts using any type of smartphone — but Mr Hancock said it cannot reliably tell how far away they are.

The clash came after Matt Hancock (pictured at the Downing Street briefing last night) humiliatingly admitted that the NHSX app, once hailed by ministers as crucial to ending lockdown, was being abandoned

The app developed by the NHS didn’t work for people using Apple iPhones and effectively went into sleep mode, failing to pick up nearby devices using Bluetooth (stock image)

THE DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE NHS AND GOOGLE/APPLE TECHNOLOGY

It is not clear why the NHS app was so much worse as using Bluetooth to detect other phones than the Apple/Google technology is.

And officials have not explained why or how it is better at measuring the distance between two phones.

The main difference between the two apps is the way they store data.

Both keep a log of who someone has come into close contact with – but the NHS’s app would have kept information in a centralised database, while the Google/Apple app is de-centralised.

NHS app: Lists on NHS servers

The NHSX app would create an alert every time two app users came within Bluetooth range of one another and log this in the user’s phone.

Each person would essentially build up a list of everyone they have been in ‘contact’ with. This would be anonymised so the lists were actually just be numbers or codes, not lists of names or addresses.

If someone was diagnosed with the coronavirus or reports that they have symptoms, all the app users they got close to during the time that they were considered infectious – this will vary from person to person – would receive an alert telling them they have been put at risk of COVID-19 – but it wouldn’t name the person who was diagnosed.

NHSX insisted it would have deleted people’s data when they get rid of the app, but not data uploaded to the NHS server if they or a contact tested positive.

Apple/Google: Contained on phones

In Apple and Google’s de-centralised approach, meanwhile, the server and list element of this process is removed and the entire log is contained in someone’s phone.

That app works by exchanging a digital ‘token’ with every phone someone comes within Bluetooth range of over a fixed period.

If one person develops symptoms of the coronavirus or tests positive, they will be able to enter this information into the app.

The phone will then send out a notification to all the devices they have exchanged tokens with during the infection window, to make people aware they may have been exposed to COVID-19.

The server database will not be necessary because each phone will keep an individual log of the bluetooth profiles someone has come close to. These will then be linked anonymously to people’s NHS apps and alerts can be pushed through that even after the person is out of bluetooth range.

It is understood that if someone later deletes the Google/Apple app and closes their account their data would be erased.

At the Downing Street briefing last night the Cabinet minister appeared to point the finger at Apple, saying: ‘Our app won’t work because Apple won’t change their system’.

But an Apple source told The Times that it had not been informed of the announcement or consulted on the plan to work together.

‘We don’t know what they mean by this hybrid model. They haven’t spoken to us about it,’ the source said.

On the idea that its version was less accurate at measuring distance than the government’s NHSX model, the source said: ‘The app has been downloaded by six million in 24 hours in Germany, the Italians have had it going since Monday, the Dutch government and Irish government have it, and there has been no issue about proximity detection.’

MailOnline understands Apple was aware of the government’s concerns about the accuracy of the model, but the company pointed out that Germany has concluded it is ‘better than relying on people’s memories’.

In a round of interviews this morning, schools minister Nick Gibb was unable to confirm whether a contract had been signed between the Government and Google and Apple to develop the contact-tracing app.

Asked if a deal to develop the app had been completed with the tech giants, the school standards minister told Sky News: ‘Well, that’s a matter for (Health Secretary Matt Hancock).

‘He’s working with Google and Apple, I don’t know the details of the contracts that they have.’

He added: ‘What I do know is that we are working with Google and Apple to iron out these problems with the system to make it robust and accurate in how it tracks and traces.’

Mr Gibb said there was no point rolling out a system that then fails.

He said: ‘We want to have ambitious plans to track and trace, and that’s what the app is about, but it has to be properly tested.

‘There’s no point in rolling out a system that then fails because what you’re asking people to do when they’re contacted by the tracers is to self-isolate and you have to be able to trust the information.’

Officials refused to reveal how much money has been spent on the now-scrapped NHSX app.

Mr Hancock, appearing alongside the head of NHS test and trace Baroness Dido Harding, could not say when an tracking app would be ready – amid claims it won’t be rolled-out until the winter.

‘We’re not going to put a date on it… But I am confident we will get there,’ he said.

Apple and Google announced on April 10 that they would join forces to create the technology, by which time the NHS had already started work. All parties put their software into action around a month later, in mid-May.

Developers in the NHS will now work alongside the tech giants to try and roll its detection software and the NHS app’s distance-measuring ability — which they said was significantly better — together to make a hybrid app that actually works.

The Labour Party said ‘precious time and money’ had been wasted in the app fiasco, which represented further ‘poor management’ of the Covid-19 crisis, which has seen more than 42,000 Brits die of the disease.

Here’s how the NHS contact tracing app fell apart:

When used on iPhones the NHS app went into background mode and stopped recording nearby phones;
As a result it only managed to detect four per cent of possible contacts for Apple phone users. In contrast, it detected 75 per cent for Android phone users;
The technology developed by Apple and Google could detect 99 per cent of nearby phones, officials said, but could not say how close they actually were;
Health bosses said the Apple/Google technology couldn’t differentiate someone 3m (9’8′) away with their phone in their hand from someone 1m (3’3′) away with it in their pocket;
Officials now want to merge the two, to have Apple/Google’s detection capability with the NHSX app’s ability to calculate distance.

The NHS app has faced a series of setbacks since ministers announced it was being developed, with experts raising serious privacy concerns, others saying it wouldn’t work in crowded tower blocks where people live in close proximity, and constant delays putting back its launch date at first by weeks and then months.

But senior politicians have stuck by the technology and promised it would come to fruition.

Mr Hancock told BBC Breakfast in May that it would be an ‘incredibly important part’ of Britain’s fight against the virus.

Boris Johnson has repeatedly said the test and trace system, with the app as a central part of it, would be ‘world-beating’.

The debacle has prompted renewed speculation about Mr Hancock’s position in the next reshuffle.

One Government source acknowledged the episode was a ‘shambles’, adding: ‘He has overpromised and under-delivered and we have seen too much of that.’