Boris Johnson has been accused of “talking rubbish” after he claimed no country in the world has a functioning track and trace app to combat the spread of coronavirus – days after millions of Germans citizens downloaded the technology.
As he unveiled a string of measures to ease the lockdown in England, the prime minister defended the government’s efforts to track the contacts of those who have tested positive for the virus, in the absence of any nationwide app.
The remarks from Mr Johnson follows the decision by ministers to ditch developing the country’s own centralised, custom-made app in favour of existing platforms from global technology companies Apple and Google – despite millions of pounds of taxpayers’ money already being used.
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Questioned on the app in the Commons by Sir Keir Starmer, Mr Johnson said: “He mentions track and trace and isolate and yes it’s perfectly true that it would be great to have an app, but no country currently has a functioning track and trace app.
“The great success of NHS test and trace is that contrary to some of the scepticism that we heard – it is so far not only contacted 87,000 people who have been in contact with those who have coronavirus, but they have elected voluntary to self-isolate and stop the disease from spreading in the community.
He added: “That is a fantastic success by our NHS test and trace operating and we will continue to improve and develop that test and trace operation so to crack down on local outbreaks and enable our country to go forward.”
However, in response to the prime minister’s comments the Labour MP Chris Bryant posted on his Twitter account: “So guess what? Boris Johnson was talking rubbish. Lots of countries have tracking apps.
Last week, Germany launched its contact tracing app in an attempt to curb the transmission rate of Covid-19, and a government spokesperson said it had been downloaded almost 10 million times.
Several other countries have also enrolled citizens onto smartphone tracing systems, including India, Singapore, France and Italy but some of them have reported flaws, including Norway which suspended its app last week over privacy concerns.
The apps are viewed as critical alongside human track and trace systems in order to alert individuals if they have been in close proximity to a person who has recently tested positive for the coronavirus.
In Australia, millions of citizens have also downloaded the country’s “completely voluntary” COVIDSafe app, but since its launch in April issues have been raised over the effectiveness of the Bluetooth technology when a device’s screen is locked.
