The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    Guardian - UK coronavirus contact tracing app: is it safe and will people use it? Archived Message

    Posted by Mary on May 6, 2020, 9:54 am

    It has been developed at breakneck speed – over the past two months – and while NHSX and the firm that has developed it, VMware Pivotal, have had advice from government security experts at the NCSC, there remains the possibility that there could be security flaws.

    Levy, however, argued they were minimal. He said the central system only stored a set of numbers and if you discovered “my app ID is 123456, there are some theoretical things you can do to try to understand my contacts if you’ve followed me round. But if you’ve followed me round, you’ve probably seen my contacts anyway.”

    Others have raised concerns that the central database could expand and increase the security risk. Matthew Gould, the chief executive of NHSX, wrote last month: “In future releases of the app, people will be able to choose to provide the NHS with extra information about themselves to help us identify hotspots and trends.”

    That prompted Damian Collins MP, a former chair of the culture, media and sport select committee, to wonder whether that would make it easier to identify people in the database if it was hacked. He also asked whether the centralised database should be deleted at the end of the pandemic, as Australia has committed to do.

    https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/05/uk-coronavirus-contact-tracing-app-is-it-safe-and-will-people-use-it

    'Dell Technologies is now the owner of both VMware and Pivotal.'
    https://www.zdnet.com/article/vmware-completes-pivotal-acquisition/

    Message Thread: