COVID-19 Tracing App now available in England

Genuinely think that’s what is required now. Too many infections are occurring because of the lack of control…

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I would say at least 90% of the population do.

I think you’re wrong that people won’t bother with it too, most people aren’t so selfish that they won’t even install an app. A small number are, and a separate small number are tin foil hat people who would rather be arrested than install it anyway. A very, very small number of people don’t have a compatible phone (of those, a large proportion are older people who are careful anyway and a lot of them are shielding).

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I really do wish I was wrong because I want the whole ordeal to be over, I just don’t see it working as intended.

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Yeah I understand that view.

I’m choosing to be optimistic that it will work, and I will wait to reserve judgement and see how it goes.

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How do you imagine this would be applied? I’m all for encouraging greater use, especially now they’re using the Apple/Google API. In no way whatsoever would I have willingly used their previous centralised system. I think in the name of the basic human right to privacy it should remain an individual choice to opt in.

I’ve seen it mentioned in some ways, we’re already there. A few political movements are already rallying against our governments handling of enforcement and deem it governing by decree. I do sympathise, and I’m personally torn on the matter.

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Actions people are taking now are having serious consequences for other people. I don’t think these people deserve the right to decide, currently. It’s a serious situation - imagine it as wartime. It’s not so dissimilar.

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Would never be legislated it’s totally not workable, if someone wants to install it then fair enough, if someone doesn’t want to install it for whatever reason then that’s fair enough an all.

I think similarly on this.

Normally, I would have a libertarian kind of attitude as much as possible - but I do think that your freedoms stop when they conflict with somebody else’s.

The right to have a dangerous gun, just for fun, would come under that for me and so would the current restrictions.

People are being stupid and selfish and it is the elderly who will suffer. They are only being so stupid because they know it’s extremely unlikely to affect them as badly as others. So in that situation you have to put pressure on their selfish impulses by threatening fines, etc.

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I’d like to think, in modern times, we would have individual choice in regards to this too.

In a genuine emergency, we wouldn’t.

But I think that is right because there are people out there who are a dangerous combination of stupid and selfish - they don’t understand and can’t comprehend the importance of measures, so they flout them. You can’t allow that to happen in an emergency situation as it puts everybody in danger.

Things like the WWII blackout wouldn’t work if they had been voluntary.

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If there was a war happening, and people were making choices which causes serious risk to the country and other people within it - I’d wholly expect that something serious was done to forcibly stop them.

I’m not saying I want that to become the new normal, but exceptional circumstances such as those that we are in now call for exceptional measures and some freedoms to be removed (such as the lock down etc.)

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I don’t disagree, but such decision would be made by parliament, not decree, and I think that’s a distinct element of choice, because it’s something we choose collectively as a society.

In regards to individual choice, I was thinking more along the lines of taking part it in.

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Also, in respect of this current crisis, I think voluntary buy-in was Boris’s personal preference anyway. He tried it and it didn’t work.

Remember when we were told to simply stay 6 feet or 2 metres apart and wash our hands “two times happy birthday”?

People mocked it and didn’t follow it, it didn’t work. It was so simple and people still said they “thought it was confusing”!

Later, we were criticised for not having more formal measures sooner - they may not have been needed if people had followed the rules.

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I see.

In practice, with a majority government, whatever the Prime Minister wants would be pushed through anyway. So it doesn’t make much practical difference, but I understand if you see it as an important formalising procedure.

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Completely agree with you here. It wasn’t until something was declared a rule that must be followed that people started to act.

Some of that will be down to the disappointing moral depravity of our society. Recommendations should be enough in my view for people to decide for themselves to be decent, mindful, human being. Sometimes that choice just has to be made for us.

I think you put it best above:

I’m an active member of The Satanic Temple, and I believe the tenets are good ideals to be adhering to in tackling the pandemic.

I
One should strive to act with compassion and empathy toward all creatures in accordance with reason.

II
The struggle for justice is an ongoing and necessary pursuit that should prevail over laws and institutions.

III
One’s body is inviolable, subject to one’s own will alone.

IV
The freedoms of others should be respected, including the freedom to offend. To willfully and unjustly encroach upon the freedoms of another is to forgo one’s own.

V
Beliefs should conform to one’s best scientific understanding of the world. One should take care never to distort scientific facts to fit one’s beliefs.

VI
People are fallible. If one makes a mistake, one should do one’s best to rectify it and resolve any harm that might have been caused.

VII
Every tenet is a guiding principle designed to inspire nobility in action and thought. The spirit of compassion, wisdom, and justice should always prevail over the written or spoken word.

People like to pull me up on tenet 4 and try to twist it to their defence of refusing to wear masks, or social distance, or isolate. So I’d just like to point out the important word there, which is unjustly. Most of the freedoms being encroached upon to fight back against the pandemic are very much justified.

I agree with this, and I think most of the population do. It’s the small selfish minority who are the problem.

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The first thing the app does is tell you it doesn’t track where you are.

The next thing it does is ask where you are.

Uninstalled.

It asks the first three letters / numbers of your postcode so that it can locate roughly where you are in the country - this is not tracking your location. This is to help identify areas where there are outbreaks.

As someone that works in school I’m hoping people install this app to help keep all the staff and those that have to work with the public on a day to day basic little safer.

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Yes, but a single piece of PII attached to an anonymised dataset is frequently enough to completely de-anonymise it.

I’m not installing the app again until people have had a chance to review the source code.

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Does this help?

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