With the English app available since September, it’s too early to know how the formula works, but even on the basis of other countries whose programs have been available for much longer, there’s still very little evidence that they can make a genuine difference in combat as opposed to COVID-19 – or that they can’t.
While this does not mean that we completely cancel touch-tracking programs, the lack of evidence is a fear given the concentration and cash spent on those programmes and the policy decisions that are made about it. This type of “technological solution” can be just a distraction in the progression of the manual touch search systems shown. Indeed, the Council of Europe raised the question of whether, given the lack of evidence, the promises made on these programmes “are a value of the foreseeable social and legal risks”.
Despite forecasts that between 67. 5% and 85. 5% of potential application users would download programs, global download rates for touch tracking programs so far have been low, reaching around 20%. 3%. Iceland and Singapore, which were one of the first to launch an app, have the highest download rates to date at 40%.
Download rates are vital because you want many other people to have the app on your phone to increase the chances that, if you come into contact with the inflamed virus, the formula can alert you to this fact.
Generally speaking, if you have 20% of the population as active users of the app, there is only a 4% chance to contact the user of the application (calculations are explained here). Increase the download rate to 40% and you have a 16% chance to assemble the active user of the application. This also works assuming that users have the same or other programs that can work together.
Apps may not want higher download rates to have any impact. A recent report by Oxford researchers warned that a well-equipped touch tracking formula that adds virtual and manual notifications can also decrease infections by 4-12% and deaths by 2-15% if you only use 15% of the population. application.
Singapore’s Ministry of Health says that where it used to take 4 days for touch to seek to identify and quarantine close contact, the app can allow them to do so in two days.
But in the real world, downloading the app is not the same as it or, more importantly, responding to self-insulating warnings if the app tells you that you have been in contact with an inflamed person. of more than 30,000 others showed that only 18% of the others agreed to isolate themselves when someone applying for the country’s manual contact search formula called them and explained why. The numbers of an automatic message on your employees’ phones will likely be even lower.
Lack of confidence
So why haven’t touch tracking apps been more demoble?First, there appears to be a lack of public confidence in generating and using non-public data.
Earlier this year, there was a lot of discussion about whether apps deserve to upload knowledge to a central knowledge base or buy it on users’ phones to maintain privacy. Most countries eventually opted for the second, France opted for the first less personal formula (and reported very low use).
England also experimented first with the centralized model, but after many reported complaints and difficulties, it moved on to a decentralized model. However, the noisy public debate would possibly have left a permanent negative impression of the effectiveness and privacy issues inherent in tracking. programs evolved through government.
In fact, there are smart reasons to be skeptical about the effectiveness of applications. Most countries (with the exception of Iceland) have also opted to use Bluetooth to record when app users contact instead of using GPS to track their fast location. to protect privacy. But Bluetooth has a number of weaknesses that mean you can record contacts that never happened and lose others.
For example, the app may record your touch even if they are in the other aspect of a partition, but if you leave your phone in your back pocket, it may not be attached to another one that is in direct condition in front of you.
A study, which took a position on a tram and compared to Italian, Swiss and German applications, concluded that the generation is very vague, nothing more than “randomly selecting” the other people to be notified, regardless of proximity. likely to have added to public confusion and lack of trust in tracking applications.
Technological problem
Another challenge is, of course, that only homeowners with smartphones can use the apps. Since 61% of those over the age of 65 in the UK do not have a cellular Internet device, this means that the largest organisation at risk is much less likely. to get advantages from touch search apps.
One solution to this challenge may be to simply use generation of choice to record people’s contacts. Singapore has brought a token that can be carried in a cord or in your pocket or purse, and comprising the generation that allows you to perform the same service as as as a tracking application. New Zealand also has a similar “COVID card” to bypass the smartphone challenge.