The UK is going down a different technological route on contact tracing to the one which was agreed last weekend between a German-led consortium, a Swiss-led consortium and Apple-Google.

The German and Swiss consortia had originally disagreed on whether the data collected by the app should be held on a central database or on mobile devices in a decentralised system. Last weekend the Germans agreed to abandon the centralised approach  to follow the Swiss model of decentralisation.

The system being developed by Apple and Google is also decentralised.

Now, NHSX, the NHS’ innovation unit, says it wants to go down the centralised route.

This has problems for people who fear it will be used by the government to check on who people are meeting.

NHSX argues that a centralised approach will give them a better handle on monitoring the spread of the disease.

 Others argue that a fear of government snooping will put off people downloading the app – and the app is only likely to be useful if  60% of the population download it.

France is having a parliamentary debate on the issue today. The French government is being accused of trying to push through a centralised approach by widening the terms of the debate to marginalise the centralisation/decentralisation issue. 

A number of French IT experts published an open letter on Sunday saying that the app could allow the government to  invade personal privacy by collecting data on meetings between people.