One of the prerequisites for a resumption of normal life after lockdown will be a fast, responsive contact-tracing system that can stop new outbreaks of coronavirus in their tracks by isolating or quarantining those who have come into contact with confirmed cases of the disease. But the margins are fine; the system need fail only once for a potential new cluster to emerge. For that reason the attraction of a mobile app that would help to map the epidemic while alerting citizens to their proximity to confirmed cases is clear. Most countries, including Ireland, have either launched their own tracing apps or plan to make them available soon.
If technology can help in the effort to keep Covid-19 under control, it should be embraced. But no app is better than one that cannot be relied on. And governments must take care to ensure that their citizens’ privacy is not the price to be paid for such a tool. On neither count – effectiveness or privacy protection – can we yet say with certainty that governments have succeeded.
Individual movements
While some states, such as Italy and Germany, have adopted apps that will avoid location tracking and a centralised database, others, including France and Norway, are using a system with a central server that holds data on individuals' movements. Data retention on that scale must be avoided – not only as a matter of principle but also because widespread adoption is essential and an app that cannot be trusted will not be used. The very fact that countries are designing their own, often incompatible, apps will pose problems once people begin to travel again.
There are also doubts about the apps' effectiveness. Scientists at Trinity College Dublin are sceptical about the accuracy of tracing apps that use a phone's Bluetooth, saying they can misjudge distances. In countries where the apps are already in use, such as Iceland and India, they have played a useful role without being game-changers in themselves. That is likely to be the experience in Europe. Tracing apps can assist the public health effort. But they are no substitute for fast, agile and well-resourced contact tracing on the ground.