Security News > 2020 > May > UK finds itself almost alone with centralized virus contact-tracing app that probably won't work well, asks for your location, may be illegal

The operating system does allow software, such as the NHS tracing app, to run in a special mode so that it can announce itself to nearby iPhones and iPads via Bluetooth, and listen out for copies of itself on other devices, even when in the background.

It is literally impossible to broadcast the UUID needed for the app to work without the screen on and the app in the foreground.

The NHS has insisted its engineers have worked around these limits "Sufficiently well" by, on iOS at least, running it in the special background mode, and briefly waking the app after it detects itself running on a nearby device.

He stated boldly in bullet points that the app "Doesn't have any personal information about you, it doesn't collect your location and the design works hard to ensure that you can't work out who has become symptomatic" and that "It holds only anonymous data and communicates out to other NHS systems through privacy preserving gateways."

What is literally the first thing the app does when you install and open it? It asks for your postcode, and logs the exact make of your phone.

News URL

https://go.theregister.co.uk/feed/www.theregister.co.uk/2020/05/05/uk_coronavirus_app/