The United Kingdom government has now included the Apple-Google contact tracing app as its main coronavirus app, rather than depending on its own-created application. Despite tons of criticisms on creating a centralized app, the British government is now forced to make an embarrassing u-turn towards adapting the U.S.-based Apple-Google app. That also means that the American companies would be handling info of maybe around 66 million British people. Here's why.
Apple-Google contact tracing app now has access to the U.K.
On Thursday, June 18, the British government decided to scrap out all their actions of making a centralized Coronavirus app and finally, allowing Apple-Google companies to access the info of over 66 million of British men.
Still, it will not be totally erased. The country's Health Secretary Matt Hancock explained that there will still be remaining features that will be applied on Apple-Google that initially came from the NHS app.
"We have agreed to join forces with Google and Apple to bring the best bits of both systems together," said him. "We found that our app works well on Android devices, but Apple software prevents iPhones from being used effectively for contact tracing unless you are using Apple's own technology."
Hancock defended their original app and said that it was not total trash. In fact, some of the beneficial features from the NHS app were not found with the Apple-Google app.
"As it stands, our app won't work because Apple won't change their system, but it can measure distance," he added. "And their app can't measure distance well enough to a standard that we are satisfied with."
When will it be operating?
For those asking when will the app be starting operating, here's bad news. The U.K. government said that they are not going to "put a date on it" since the preparation for the partnership is still going to take a few months.
However, he added that they're already "working on it."
As of Thursday, June 18, the U.K. already recorded over 300,000 confirmed victims and more than 42,000 deaths due to the virus. The total population of the country is around 66 million, according to the database.
If the government requires all citizens to download the app, that's a huge stake to take.
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