The British government is pulling the plug on the development of its own app to prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
London is choosing to use the technology developed by Apple and Google for this, the BBC and Sky News report.
Not much will change for the user, the app will look the same, but under the hood, it works differently.
Apple and Google technology offers a little more privacy but gives virus researchers less information. Britain follows the example of countries such as Germany, Italy and Denmark.
Each user of such a corona app is given a unique code. When someone is out and about, their phone connects to others’ phones via Bluetooth.
After that contact, the other person’s code is saved. If someone turns out to have the coronavirus, the others receive a warning that they may be infected and that they can be tested.
Britain wanted to keep track of those contacts centrally, but then governments and hackers can find out who has contacted whom. Apple and Google follow that contact on the phone itself. If someone has the coronavirus, all other phones are instructed to search for that patient’s code.
If it is found, the warning will follow. But it is not possible to find out who the patient is and where the contact has been.
