Will you download the contact tracing app?

plodder

jlang wrote: »

I was thinking about that and having people in the habit of opening the app once a day is a reasonable way to make sure the app is still running. I'd expect less and less to check in as it becomes a pointless task.

I agree that fewer people will do it over time, but I think it is still useful the more who do stick with it.

Is the "number of keys" in the exposure notification interface indicative of how many alerts have been issued? It seems to be 0 in all the checks, so am I right in thinking that no any actual virus exposure checks have been issued yet.

Assuming you are on Android, it's a bug in the Google play services, part of the system. The count should refer to the number of reports since the last update on your app.

(Unsurprisingly my "number of matches" is zero too - I presume also that that's my personal number of matches as the app wouldn't be able to know about any matches that don't involve me).

Right.

Other questions:

Will they let the media (etc) publicise after the first contact alerts have been issued via the app? (or the first positives that have been found through the key matching leading to voluntary testing) It could lead to another burst of installations as people realize there may actually be a point to the thing. Conversely, if it goes on too long with no such news as they still make scary noises about the number of cases, then the app may well have been pointless.

It has happened already and was reported in the media. If you have access to an iphone you can see the equivalent "number of keys" information up to date.

Is it possible to access the number of random IDs my phone has picked up? No intention here of matching the IDs with specific contacts. I'm just curious how many contact events it thinks I've had. I hope there's at least a few because I know I've been in the appropriate level of contact with close family members, neighbours and colleagues. I can name at least 8 that have been within good Bluetooth range (if not quite 2 metres) continuously for at least 15 minutes in the last two weeks, mostly multiple times each. I know most if not all of them have the app installed.

I don't think so.

jlang

jlang wrote: »

Is it possible to access the number of random IDs my phone has picked up?

On second thoughts it's probably just as well there isn't. I may only be curious but if there's a number you can see some would make a game out of it and increase their contacts just to "win".

un5byh7sqpd2x0

FitzShane wrote: »

I have noticed my battery life in my phone being a lot worse than usual over the last couple of weeks too, so all of these considered - is it really worth having & using the app?

I’d much prefer to be healthy than have a fuller phone battery at the end of the day.

plodder

jlang wrote: »

On second thoughts it's probably just as well there isn't. I may only be curious but if there's a number you can see some would make a game out of it and increase their contacts just to "win".

Even if you could access the data, it wouldn't reveal much because everyone's phone is changing the random ID every 10 minutes, and each new ID gets recorded as a new contact. Though if one of those people reports they are infected then your phone sees that as only one report.

jlang

Exactly. There's negligible loss of privacy or security as the app is well designed, but if the contact count was available in the interface it could cause behaviour that would undermine the whole exercise.


It's about tracing the contacts that are already happening, not causing additional contacts to occur.


I'm sure this must have been covered earlier in the thread. Sorry for bringing it up again as I work through it

DevilsHaircut

The purpose of the symptom check-in is to identify potential hotspots early.

But the one in our app is a bit 'mickey mouse' and doesn't include the full range of symptoms.

The King's College app can predict a patient's future need for respiratory support with 79% accuracy.


https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1284114009998884864

MOH

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Does anyone know of any geofencing app that automatically turns off Bluetooth when you are at home?

Disclaimer: I've never actually used it, but this sounds exactly like what IFTTT is designed for.

tfeldi

If someone could clarify: Every time I open the app it is showing as inactive (the contract tracing symbol at the bottom is red). However, as soon as I press anything in the app it seems to wake up and is showing to be active. Is that normal. I have an Android.

plodder

tfeldi wrote: »

If someone could clarify: Every time I open the app it is showing as inactive (the contract tracing symbol at the bottom is red). However, as soon as I press anything in the app it seems to wake up and is showing to be active. Is that normal. I have an Android.

That doesn't sound right but it might not be a problem so long as the Contact Tracing Service is working. You can check that in Settings -> Google. If the service is On then my guess is it's working. If you press that you can see when it last checked for updates. I see also the app itself updated over the last day or so.

eeepaulo

tfeldi wrote: »

If someone could clarify: Every time I open the app it is showing as inactive (the contract tracing symbol at the bottom is red). However, as soon as I press anything in the app it seems to wake up and is showing to be active. Is that normal. I have an Android.

I had the same, by phones battery optimizer was turning it off.

Im on android 9

Settings - battery - app launch set the covid app to manual, all three boxes checked.

Settings - apps - apps - three dots top right - special access - battery optimisation -change drop down to all apps - set covid app to dont allow

is_that_so

1,350,893 downloads of app now according to my phone. That's about 33% of the adult population.

YellowBucket

Ireland has very high smartphone penetration, so it's quite possible that it could work well here.

33% is pretty impressive.

expectationlost

is anybody checking in each day, going no symptoms, no symptoms, no symptoms..

When I think of it. I’d say around 70-80% of the time.

is_that_so

expectationlost wrote: »

is anybody checking in each day, going no symptoms, no symptoms, no symptoms..

Yeah, almost every day.

igCorcaigh

eeepaulo wrote: »

I had the same, by phones battery optimizer was turning it off.

Im on android 9

Settings - battery - app launch set the covid app to manual, all three boxes checked.

Settings - apps - apps - three dots top right - special access - battery optimisation -change drop down to all apps - set covid app to dont allow

Oh... Does this mean the app may not have been always running? I had its battery setting on automatic, the default setting.

eeepaulo

igCorcaigh wrote: »

Oh... Does this mean the app may not have been always running? I had its battery setting on automatic, the default setting.

I'm not sure tbh. (well im fairly sure the app wasnt running, whether that means it isnt logging dont know.)

I had the same sort of thing as you, when i opened the app it had a little red thing by contact tracing at the bottom, if i quickly went into contact tracing it gave me an enable button. Doesnt do that anymore.

expectationlost

is_that_so wrote: »

Yeah, almost every day.

so the days you don't check in saying you have no symptoms... what does it think, you do have symptons?

Danzy

expectationlost wrote: »

so the days you don't check in saying you have no symptoms... what does it think, you do have symptons?

No.
It just wants to see if a local area has a report of multiples feeling unwell.

Get an idea of an outbreak before any one is ever tested.

So if you never click it either way that's still the job.

fly_agaric

tfeldi wrote: »

If someone could clarify: Every time I open the app it is showing as inactive (the contract tracing symbol at the bottom is red). However, as soon as I press anything in the app it seems to wake up and is showing to be active. Is that normal. I have an Android.

I've seen the same or similar (also on Android). However, at least for me icon turns to "active" a second or two after application loads without doing anything and it says contact tracing is "active".
Can also see Exposure notification is turned on in phone settings and it is making checks of keys etc.
Could be wrong, but I was assuming app was just checking on the Exposure notification service after user starts it up, and it doesn't update the icon till it finishes that.

eeepaulo

fly_agaric wrote: »

I've seen the same or similar (also on Android). However, at least for me icon turns to "active" a second or two after application loads without doing anything and it says contact tracing is "active".
Can also see Exposure notification is turned on in phone settings and it is making checks of keys etc.
Could be wrong, but I was assuming app was just checking on the Exposure notification service after user starts it up, and it doesn't update the icon till it finishes that.

Could a few other people check this. Im getting exposure checks, just not sure if its all of them.

My phone has problems with playing a radio app and a dns blocker when the screen goes off the battery optimizer turns them off, i thought that is what was happening with the app. I could be wrong though. Its the same as you described, it automatically goes to active after a few seconds, but when i open it it says disabled.

Maybe the covid app doesnt need to be running, i'd be interested to know though

JazzyJ

DevilsHaircut wrote: »

The purpose of the symptom check-in is to identify potential hotspots early.

But the one in our app is a bit 'mickey mouse' and doesn't include the full range of symptoms.

The King's College app can predict a patient's future need for respiratory support with 79% accuracy.


https://twitter.com/guardian/status/1284114009998884864

Danzy wrote: »

No.
It just wants to see if a local area has a report of multiples feeling unwell.

Get an idea of an outbreak before any one is ever tested.

So if you never click it either way that's still the job.

There's no location tracking in the application though, so at best it can only identify at the country level. Considering there's always 1% of all check-ins marked as having symptoms, I don't think that a potential uptick in cases could be easily identified - it would just get lost in the noise.

plodder

JazzyJ wrote: »

There's no location tracking in the application though, so at best it can only identify at the country level. Considering there's always 1% of all check-ins marked as having symptoms, I don't think that a potential uptick in cases could be easily identified - it would just get lost in the noise.

The symptom check-in part asks you for your county and locality when you set it up first time. So, it should be able to see outbreaks at locality level if enough people use the function. But, it's still anonymous anyway.

MOH

is_that_so wrote: »

1,350,893 downloads of app now according to my phone. That's about 33% of the adult population.

It's probably unlikely that every download is an adult though

JazzyJ

plodder wrote: »

The symptom check-in part asks you for your county and locality when you set it up first time. So, it should be able to see outbreaks at locality level if enough people use the function. But, it's still anonymous anyway.

You're right. Forgot about that!

fly_agaric

eeepaulo wrote: »

Could a few other people check this. Im getting exposure checks, just not sure if its all of them.

My phone has problems with playing a radio app and a dns blocker when the screen goes off the battery optimizer turns them off, i thought that is what was happening with the app. I could be wrong though. Its the same as you described, it automatically goes to active after a few seconds, but when i open it it says disabled.

Maybe the covid app doesnt need to be running, i'd be interested to know though

Im assuming you mean you are listening to the radio (using the app) and the screen goes dark/phone starts to save battery and the application stops working?
I don't think that will matter for this application.
I am not a mobile developer or even a phone "geek" (so take with grain of salt). I have applications installed on my reasonably new Android phone without special battery settings changed which manage to raise very unimportant (!) alerts at all times of the day whether I've actually opened/used them recently [let alone have them 'on screen'/loaded] (e.g. Google news, the Reddit application).
I imagine it is the same with this application (or it should be?), and if it needs to it will alert me.

Stark

https://www.nearform.com/blog/ireland-donates-contact-tracing-app-to-linux-foundation/

KyussB

The Exposure API used by many countries coronavirus apps, including ours, is coming under criticism for requiring that location information be enabled on Android - without notifying users that, if they don't adjust Google Location Accuracy settings for location information gathering, that this will send records of your location information to Google:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/technology/google-covid-tracker-app.html

plodder

KyussB wrote: »

The Exposure API used by many countries coronavirus apps, including ours, is coming under criticism for requiring that location information be enabled on Android - without notifying users that, if they don't adjust Google Location Accuracy settings for location information gathering, that this will send records of your location information to Google:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/technology/google-covid-tracker-app.html

We discussed all that here already. From the article:

Since 2015, Google’s Android system has required users to enable location on their phones to scan for other Bluetooth devices, Mr. Voss said, because some apps may use Bluetooth to infer user location. For instance, some apps use Bluetooth beacons in stores to help marketers understand which aisle a smartphone user may be in.

It's been a feature of Android since 2015 and nothing to do with this technology. Obviously, it would look better from a privacy perspective if they weren't all lumped in together. But, their solution was to disallow covid tracker apps from accessing your location.

KyussB

The bolded part is the issue - location tracking needing to be enabled was discussed already, not the bolded issue:

KyussB wrote: »

The Exposure API used by many countries coronavirus apps, including ours, is coming under criticism for requiring that location information be enabled on Android - without notifying users that, if they don't adjust Google Location Accuracy settings for location information gathering, that this will send records of your location information to Google:
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/20/technology/google-covid-tracker-app.html