Road to Covid-19 app development was 'bumpy and painful,' says head of NHSX

The app was released in England and Wales last month after much delays

The development of UK's Covid-19 contact tracing app was a "bumpy and painful" process, the head of the NHS' innovation division (NHSX) acknowledged on Wednesday.

The NHS' troubled contact tracing app, which was delayed for nearly four months due to technical issues and privacy concerns, was released in September to help track coronavirus patients in England and Wales.

The app uses Bluetooth technology to alert users if they spend 15 minutes or more within two meters of another user who subsequently tests positive for Covid-19.

"It was bumpy and painful but at each point I think we did plus or minus the right thing," NHSX boss Matthew Gould told the FabChange2020 conference on Wednesday.

According to Gould, NHSX had started work on the app weeks before Apple and Google said that they were developing their own application programming interface (API).

However, they made an error, Gould said, when they did not inform people that NHS was working on both versions of the technology at the same time.

The first version of the Covid-19 app was based on a system that stored data in a centralised database. In April, over a hundred academics and privacy experts from across the country wrote an open letter to government, raising concerns over the threats to data security and user privacy due to centralised approach to data collection.

Privacy groups argued that a decentralised app, where the data is kept encrypted on the smartphone, would provide users stronger guarantees of privacy and anonymity.

Taking note of all that criticism, the NHS later announced that it would abandon the centralised contact tracing app in favour of one that would use the decentralised mobile API created by Apple and Google.

Since its launch in September, the Covid-19 tracing app has been downloaded more than 16 million times. Although it was behind schedule, the app offers more features than similar apps launched in other countries.

It comes with the ability for users to scan QR codes to check in at stores and restaurants. It can also inform residents if their local area is declared a hotspot due to rising numbers of cases.

The app also lists symptoms associated with coronavirus, to help users decide if they need a Covid-19 test. Users can use the app to book tests and find out how long they'll need to self-isolate when they come in close contact with an individual found positive for coronavirus.