Google and Apple Block NHS app in UK for Violating User Privacy

• By Jennifer Prill
• (General Dispatch) –    Silicon Valley technology companies Apple and Google blocked an update to a UK NHS app after it violated users’ privacy.

• The development of the covid-19 app was intended to be used as restrictions were lifted, apart from users’ information being kept on mobile devices.

• But the company had to block it, after the information was leaked and could be monitored through a government database; the NHS is not authorized to know the location of users being this a Google and Apple policy.

• “A contact tracking application cannot use location-based APIs … and cannot collect any device information to identify the precise location of users” this being one of the policies implemented.

• If the big technology companies had allowed applications to disclose users’ precise location from the beginning, governments would have already taken advantage of it.

• For this reason, privacy policies have been defended by large technology companies, even though they have been harshly criticized.

• A representative of Britain’s Department of Health and Social Care said via Sky News that the blocking they carried out was a “delay” in updating the app.

• Conservative Breixteer member David Davis raised concerns and criticized the NHS UK health system for being “incompetent” in maintaining control of the British community’s private information.

Adittional Information:

Breitbart: Apple and Google Block UK Govt’s Coronavirus App Update for Violating Privacy

Sky News: COVID-19: NHS coronavirus app update blocked for breaking privacy rules