Professor Mark Ryan is one of more than 150 UK academics who have signed an open letter warning that the deployment of a new NHS contact-tracing app designed to tackle the spread of coronavirus risks creating a dangerous precedent for intrusive surveillance in Britain. The academics – including leading experts on privacy, data and computer science – wrote to the head of NHSX, the health service’s technology arm, claiming the project risked a “mission creep into surveillance”. The letter, published on the 29th April, warned the upcoming app, being developed by the health service to monitor the way the spread of the virus, could pose a security risk and that its “invasive information” gathering need to be justified.
