1 May 2020updated 06 Oct 2020 9:45am

Ireland opts for different tracing strategy to UK

BERLIN, GERMANY - APRIL 27: A young woman wearing a face mask, who said she did not mind being photographed, looks at a smartphone as she waits at a tram at Alexanderplatz on the first day of a nationwide policy to wear protective face masks in stores and while riding public transportation during the novel coronavirus crisis on April 27, 2020 in Berlin, Germany. The German government is introducing steps to ease lockdown restrictions in order to help economic activity to resume while at the same time seeking to prevent a renewed surge in Covid-19 infections. (Photo by Sean Gallup/Getty Images,)

The Republic of Ireland will pursue a coronavirus contact-tracing phone app, supported by Apple and Google, which the country’s health minister, Simon Harris, has said “maximises the protection of privacy”. The approach differs from the UK, which is working on its own centralised model run by NHSX, the digital arm of the health service.

The model Ireland will use monitors the spread of Covid-19 by registering contact that people come into via the devices on their person, while the UK’s sends signals back to a server.

Privacy campaigners have claimed that the device-based model is less intrusive and less susceptible to cyber security breaches, but the UK government believes its centralised option will help to collate more data in one place, and thus add greater insight into the nature of the disease.