Millions risk being locked out of Covid-19 contact tracing app

Ten million people in the UK risk being locked out of the Covid-19 contact-tracing app because of a “digital divide”, putting potential constraints on their ability to access work and safeguard their health, a parliamentary committee has heard.

Almost 2m households in the UK do not have any internet access, Helen Milner, the chief executive of Good Things Foundation, a digital inclusion charity, told the culture, media and sport committee.

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A further 7 million people “have used the net, but have very basic skills, like not knowing how to open an app”.

Those people risk being shut out of attempts to build a smartphone-based contact-tracing app, unless the government urgently funds way to bridge the gap with digital training and support, said Liz Williams, the chief executive of FutureDotNow, which is running a campaign to get devices to the country’s most vulnerable.

Milner said many of those lacking digital skills were also more vulnerable for other reasons. “Sixty-four per cent of the people who have never used the internet are over 65,” she said. “But it’s not just older people: of the 7 million who have used the net but have very, very basic skills – like not knowing how to open an app – 63% of them are under 65.”

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Many of those younger people were members of other vulnerable groups dealing with disparities in educational achievement, disabilities, and including non-native English speakers and refugees, Milner said.

Missing out on the contact-tracing app had the potential to exacerbate those problems, Williams warned. “My concern is it has the potential to add to social divides and employment outcomes,” she said. “It would be easy to imagine a scenario where employers require it to access work.”

Refurbished devices, one of the more effective ways of closing the divide, also had less success because older devices may not run the contact-tracing app, Williams said.

“It underlines why it is so important to have a 100% digitally included nation,” she added. “We have got over 8,000 people on a waiting list and our inbox is jam-packed with other organisations asking for help.

“If we had the resources, we could get to 10,000 people in a matter of days, and 100,000 people relatively quickly.”

The NHS Covid-19 contact-tracing app data ethics board, which advises the government on the various issues surrounding the app, has similar concerns, warning that the app “should not give exclusive access to services or freedoms”.

“If the app becomes a tool for accessing currently restricted services or freedoms, such as permission to return to work, to use public transport, or to enjoy other freedoms, this would drastically alter the value proposition of the app and potentially introduce new levels of inequity which would need to be identified and addressed,” Jonathan Montgomery, the chair of the board, wrote in a letter to Matt Hancock on 24 April, which was released on Wednesday.