In what could herald a course reversal for the UK's National Health Service, health officials in that country have reportedly asked a team of developers to "investigate" switching its contact tracing app to a cross-platform API provided by Apple and Google.
The NHS COVID-19 app, which includes mechanisms for contact tracing. Credit: BBC
The NHS is this week scheduled to
begin testing an in-house contact tracing solution as part of wider efforts to monitor and mitigate the spread of the
coronavirus. Like France, the
UK rejected an arguably more comprehensive API from Apple and Google in favor of a solution capable of storing user information in a central database.
It now appears that UK officials have contracted a Swiss development firm to refine the NHS contact tracing app before it sees mass circulation. According to documents
seen by The Financial Times, that refinement also includes investigating the "feasibility" of implementing the Apple-Google technology.
The development company's work is described as a "two-week timeboxed technical spike" with a deadline of mid-May.