Internet DNA Podcast

Dear Santa, why can’t Google and Apple let governments use Bluetooth in a way enables their track and trace apps to work when they seem to be able to do it for their track and trace apps? For Christmas, or preferably sooner, can you just make them do that.

How honest is Google - we explain the Covid-19 track and trace apps in more detail and touch on the scary side of privacy, where do you stand? And Dan says he's not weird about data, but I think we can be the judge of that.

Transcription

(this transcription is written by robots… so don’t be surprised!)

Hello and welcome to this weeks episode of Internet DNA with me Abi,

and me Dan

This week, we wanted to go a bit deeper into the track and trace  App because we've got Google and Apple creating phone operating systems suggesting they're going to make a track and trace. And I think that they've just gone live in Switzerland, but you talk about not wanting to give your data to Google or Apple.

They refuse to work with the UK government because the UK government wanted to keep our data. They wanted to keep it in a centralized place, somewhere in the NHS, wherever that happens to be. And Google and Apple said, no, we're not keeping any data. No. Definitely not. So the UK said, right,

very like Google, we're not keeping any of your data.

Oh no, no, no. We are recording your conversations in your house, but we're not keeping any data, but anyway, I take your point. So you're what you're saying is the government says. In the track and trace app. We want people's medical records and Google went, no not medical records. We want people's information.

So the information that they're sending out from the app about how I feel. If I'm ill the app. You go, I'm feeling really ill today. Uh, tell all my friends off it pings. It just then pings everyone that you've seen.

How does it know who you've seen? It's not storing any data

It works on Bluetooth. And this is where the UK app has fallen flat.

If everybody's radiating Bluetooth, every time you see someone, it goes hi and they go hi and little bits of Bluetooth are stored on the phones, not centralized, on the phones. Okay, Google wants to store it on your own phone, but the UK government wants to store that information collected on your phone centralized because first of all they said, we won't use it for anything else.

And then they went, actually, we might use it later for research.

The Bluetooth goes, huh? Hi. Hi. Hi. Hi. And on your phone, it keeps a record of everyone. Your Bluetooth app has said hello too, and then if one of those people that you've said hello to. Says that they're ill. Then they put that in the app on their phone and then their phone messages out to all the Bluetooth people they've seen in the last two weeks going you've got self isolate.

Oh, are we getting into a seven degrees of separation problem at that point? Well,

like Kevin bacon, it only tells the people you've seen it. Doesn't then tell the people they've seen and the people that they've seen that they've seen and the people that they've seen that they've seen that they do.

You see what I mean? Isn't it, their idea that within 7 degrees....

Okay. Their phone only radiates out. When they press the red button saying I've got symptoms. Yeah. It doesn't go through the whole country in three minutes. It only tells you when those people have symptoms. So yes, theoretically you could be incubating it without knowing it, but that's how it does it.

But. Before you go, okay. That is a problem because Google and Apple prevented Bluetooth from being able to just Willy nilly radiate because, because it was used for advertising and advertisers were able to just spam people all the time. So if you haven't actively got the app on, on the forefront of your phone, Then it wont send out the Bluetooth signals.

Apple is better at stopping this even than Google is. And so it doesn't work at all. So the UK app has completely fallen flat because it only works if you have your phone on and the app on, in front of you and anyway, phones and apps go to sleep. So it doesn't work at all. The reason that Google and Apple's one work is because they created the phones and software and of course they can change the rules for them.

Anyway, Is really the answer. Isn't it. Google can do it because they track you anyway.

You still don't believe that Google and Apple are doing this in a pure and good way. You still think that they're just getting all new information.

Yeah. I'm not putting a moral point onto it. I'm not saying a good way or bad way.

What, I'm trying to say is. The reason why Apple and Google can go, well, we don't need to store the information is because they're already doing it. They're already tracking your, every movement. I get into my car and we were like, Oh, you're 10 minutes from wherever you might be going now, how does it know I've got in my car?

Because it tracked where I got out of my car. That's why my map thing can go, Oh, you parked your car over there. I didn't ask it to save my parking point. It's tracking me. All the time when I'm on an iPhone. So I'm not even on an Android where I've said, Hey, Google, how about you? Just tell me where I am.

What I'm saying is they can do it because they already track everything you do and that's important, but it needs to connect into something that maybe does help them. The real thing with track and trace is it's the people you don't know that you've come in contact with like the co-op checkout girl and someone at the petrol station. It's those people that it needs to alert.

Yeah. It's the people that you don't know that you've been in contact with it. So you could tell your friends, but you can't tell the people who have been working. On the face of it, the Google and Apple one sound like they're the more privacy aware ones. But what you're saying is, Hmm.

It may look like that on the surface, but don't you worry? They've got your information anyway. Yeah, absolutely. The UK government did very much say they want the information because they can help them trace better and then they can use it in the future to help them do more good. And the privacy advocates go or bad.

So that's where we are with track and trace. Now every country that has tried to do it themselves has run into the same Bluetooth issue that it just doesn't work. So Singapore's didn't work. Australia's didn't work Germany quickly swapped back as well. So basically we're going to have to use these giants because they're the only ones that can switch on and off the Bluetooth broadcasting.

If you make your own app, it's not going to be allowed to broadcast when the phones are asleep. I don't think we're going to be ready for quite a while.

But leads to the question, which is, wait a minute. So Google can create an app that is allowed to do that, and Apple can do that. So why can't they allow government apps to do that within their own countries?

So I can understand Apple saying, I don't want the British government tracking you, when you're in. France. I can understand why Google would say that, which is like there's dates and laws. They're different everywhere. I don't want to get involved in it. It's just the lawyers quagmire. But if you say right, if you're in the UK, then really, since you obviously can do it, because you'll do it anyway with your own app, why don't, you  allow it for other governments to be able to do it.

It is a very good point. Google and Apple. I know you're listening to our podcast because it's so important. Why can't you just let the Governments do what you're doing with the Bluetooth? Yes, as theirs works when they do it themselves.

Its a bit like writing to Santa. "Dear Apple..."

and the only reason you're not allowing my apps to work is because you want your app to work. Yeah. Do you see what I mean?  If it's possible, it's possible.

Well there you go, lets speak next week. Bye

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Dan & Abi work, talk & dream in tech. If you would like to discuss any speaking opportunity contact us.