Covid-19: NHS Application

Baroness McIntosh of Pickering Excerpts

Thursday 1st October 2020 Lords Chamber

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

The noble Lord has made a very detailed and technical inquiry. We are studying the ENX system very closely. However, as I mentioned earlier, the secret source of the British app is the algorithm that takes the data from Bluetooth and the phone and analyses it to give the risk assessment. Our view is that that algorithm is absolutely critical. Without it, the ENX system fires off alerts to anyone who has been proximate to another Bluetooth phone that has registered a positive test, even if they have only driven past that phone on the motorway. Those are exactly the kinds of circumstances that the British public made it crystal clear to us they simply would not tolerate. Therefore, we have put an enormous investment into that algorithm. We have had an enormous amount of interest from other countries, and we are happy to share that learning with companies as we develop our intelligence on it.

[Baroness McIntosh of Pickering (Con) [V]]

I wish my noble friend many happy returns on his birthday. Clearly, the app is a very useful tool. Does he imagine that the Government will use it in conjunction with the testing of international passengers arriving at airports? When might testing be rolled out at airports?

[Lord Bethell (Con)]

My Lords, version 1 does not have an international component to it, but that is something that we would seek to develop. I emphasise that the app in its current form is very much focused on providing a huge amount of personal privacy and is therefore not an appropriate vehicle for putting in place any form of surveillance or quarantine management. That would be in breach of our arrangements with our technical partners, Apple and Google. Therefore, although I cannot give my noble friend Lady McIntosh a complete answer, I would like to hint that perhaps this will not be the vehicle for accelerating airport testing.