Coronavirus contact-tracing app could make 'privacy and rights another casualty of the virus', campaigners warn

Health secretary claims concerns are 'completely wrong'

The coronavirus contact-tracing app could make the UK's privacy "another casualty" of the outbreak, privacy and human rights campaigners have warned.

The government and NHS has insisted that the plans for the app protect the privacy and security of the people using it, with safeguards including the fact that the app only collects anonymised information about those who use it.

But some campaign groups including Amnesty International have argued that the app is still unsafe and could open the door to more ongoing and pervasive kinds of surveillance.

They argue that design decisions include the fact that the app uses a centralised database of those affected mean that it could endanger the people who use it.

NHSX, the app's developer, has insisted the NHS and the app asks only for the first half of a user's postcode, all data in the app is anonymous and does not leave a user's phone until they volunteer to share it with the NHS.

However, Amnesty International UK director Kate Allen said the Government should be looking at decentralised app models - where contact-tracing data stays on a user's device.

"We're extremely concerned that the Government may be planning to route private data through a central database, opening the door to pervasive state surveillance and privacy infringement, with potentially discriminatory effects," she said.

"Ministers should instead be examining decentralised, privacy-preserving models such as those many European governments are pursuing.

"In these extraordinary times, contact-tracing apps and other technology could potentially be useful tools in responding to Covid-19, but our privacy and rights must not become another casualty of the virus.

"Contact-tracing apps must always be voluntary and without incentives or penalties."

The app trial being run on the Isle of Wight is voluntary, although NHS chiefs and the Government have urged residents to download the app in order to improve its impact.

Health secretary Matt Hancock said that the concerns were "completely wrong".

Asked why, he said: "Firstly because the data is stored on your phone until you need to get in contact with the NHS in order to get a test and secondly because the purposes of this are purely and simply to control the spread of the virus, which is really important.

"Thirdly because we've all had to give up significant infringements on our liberty, for instance with the social distancing measures and the lockdown, and we want to release those, and this approach will help us to release them ... I can reassure you that it's completely untrue."