NHS coronavirus app: memo discussed giving ministers power to 'de-anonymise' users

Exclusive: draft plans for contact-tracing app said device IDs could be used to identify users

di David Pegg e Paul Lewis

A draft government memo explaining how the NHS contact-tracing app could stem the spread of the coronavirus said ministers might be given the ability to order “de-anonymisation” to identify people from their smartphones, the Guardian can reveal.

The health secretary, Matt Hancock, announced on Sunday that the UK planned to introduce an app that would enable people who developed Covid-19 symptoms to “anonymously” alert other users to whom they had been in close proximity. “All data will be handled according to the highest ethical and security standards, and would only be used for NHS care and research,” he said.

However, the government document seen by the Guardian, headed “official – sensitive” and “draft – not yet approved”, suggests the NHS privately considered using the technology to identify users.

Produced in March, the memo explained how an NHS app could work, using Bluetooth LE, a standard feature that runs constantly and automatically on all mobile devices, to take “soundings” from other nearby phones through the day. People who have been in sustained proximity with someone who may have Covid-19 could then be warned and advised to self–isolate, without revealing the identity of the infected individual.

However, the memo stated that “more controversially” the app could use device IDs, which are unique to all smartphones, “to enable de-anonymisation if ministers judge that to be proportionate at some stage”. It did not say why ministers might want to identify app users, or under what circumstances doing so would be proportionate.

It added that alternatives to building an NHS app included “making use of existing apps and other functions already installed on people’s phones (eg Google Maps).”

A spokesperson for NHSX, the digital transformation wing of the health service, which is overseeing the development of the UK contact-tracing app, denied there were ever plans to de-anonymise data, or use data from apps such as Google Maps.

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