The NHS coronavirus app may only work when the user’s phone is unlocked and the app is running, it has emerged. The app, which it’s hoped will be key to the UK’s route out of lockdown, is being trialled in the Isle of Wight from this week.
Matt Hancock said it was the public’s duty to download and use the app. But as well as privacy concerns about data collected by the app, questions are being raised about whether it will work at all.
The app works by devices ‘pinging’ encrypted signals to each other while users are out and about. When a user reports coronavirus symptoms, the app looks back through the people they have recently come into contact with and tells them they should self-isolate.