There seems to be an issue growing between national health services, governments and Apple and Google – in developing a corona-virus tracing app. Google and Apple want the apps to operate in a decentralised way without national governments having access to individual users data.
The NHS system being developed for example will have the following limitation imposed if it goes live currently with current rules applied
The app will not work when the screen is off or if any other ap is being used. The current rules mean that for the apps to run the screen would need to be on all the time. This would affect phone battery performance and would also be a security risk if the phone was stolen as it would not be locked, normally an app has strict limited access to Bluetooth for example unless it is running in the foreground.
The tracing app “traveltogether” in Singapore has had these issues and has only been installed by 12% of the population and currently only has a 3 star rating on the Singapore app store.
It is going to be really interesting to see how this is solved.