UK expected to ditch its virus app after delays

Britain's government is scrapping its existing coronavirus tracing smartphone app and switching to a model based on technology supplied by Apple and Google, the BBC reports.The government's app is being trialled on the Isle of Wight, and was expected to be rolled out in the rest of the country later.

Britain's government is scrapping its existing coronavirus tracing smartphone app and switching to a model based on technology supplied by Apple and Google, the BBC reports. The government's app is being trialed on the Isle of Wight and was expected to be rolled out in the rest of the country later. But the program, previously hailed as a fundamental pillar of the U.K. response to the pandemic, has been delayed.

On Wednesday, the official responsible for the app said it may not be ready until the winter and that it is not the "priority" at the moment. The data gathered by the Apple-Google design is expected to be less centralized but it is said to have less privacy concerns than the government version.

The government was to brief reporters later Thursday about the next stage of development in the contact tracing app.