UK throws in the towel on centralised COVID-19 tracing app

Just yesterday Lord Bethel was saying he couldn't give a date for the launch of the (centralised) COVID-19 tracing app and there indications it would come only in the winter.

Well, that's all old news today as it seems the UK is finally coming to its senses and abandoning the idea of a centralised COVID-19 tracing app which it had been pursuing for some months and, God knows, at what expense since there is no indication of the real cost of that contract yet. According to the BBC, the Government will now adopt a decentralised model similar to Germany, Italy and Denmark, using Google and Apple's APIs to track contacts between COVID-19 infected persons. Cannot resist to a "I told you so..." though.

There are reasonable technical doubts about the effectiveness of such a system, but if it is to be tried, better to do it this way than pile a mountain of personal data on the hands of those who may be very willing to distribute widely it for the right price.