Coronavirus latest: Almost 1,000 Scots wrongly told to self-isolate after app malfunction

Almost 1,000 people across Scotland have been wrongly told to self-isolate after a technical malfunction with the nation’s official coronavirus tracing smartphone app.

An error with an upgrade to the Protect Scotland app at the beginning of the week resulted in 900 people wrongly being sent notifications telling them to quarantine for 10 days in case they were infectious.

Anyone who received an alert between one minute past midnight on Monday and 8.30am on Tuesday is now being advised to call a national hotline to check if theirs was valid.

Nicola Sturgeon apologised for the mistake during her daily coronavirus briefing, but stressed that the problem lasted for only 32 and a half hours and has since been resolved.

Read More

Scotland five tier system: The lockdown restrictions explained, from pubs and restaurants to gyms

The First Minister said she had been “assured” that anyone calling the contact tracing hotline on 0800 030 8012 would be able to find out if they were safe to stop self-isolating.

However, there was confusion over whether this was indeed the case, after a journalist who called the hotline said he was simply told to use his “own judgement”.

John Brady, who received one of the alerts himself, said he was told by a contact tracer there was no way to tell who had received an accurate notification and who had not.

He said he was told: “Our advice is to make your own judgement call based on whether anyone in your household or your bubble is showing symptoms – but it is highly likely this was an error.”

High number of notifications

Officials discovered the error due to the high number of notifications sent out. Over a normal 32 hour timeframe, it would be expected that about 250 people would be alerted.

But Ms Sturgeon said the app – which has been downloaded more than 1.7m times so far – had been “configured in an overly sensitive way” during a routine upgrade.

She added: “I want to reassure people that the issue has been identified and has now been fixed, but it does mean some people will have received notifications in that period who do not actually need to self-isolate.”

Asked to expand on this explanation, Deputy Chief Medical Officer Dr Nicola Steedman said all of the people who received notifications would have been in contact with a Covid-positive person, but for a shorter period or at a greater distance than required to trigger one.

She added that because the app is designed to be anonymous to protect users’ data, it was not possible for officials to contact the affected people individually, meaning they must come forward.

A Scottish Government spokesman said the issue had been caused by a “configuration error” that triggered notifications if a person had been close to someone with Covid for just 15 seconds, rather than 15 minutes.

He added that if an affected person called the hotline, contact tracers would “provide advice on a case-by-case basis, depending on whether it is likely an individual had come in contact with a case”.

This story has been updated following announcement from the Scottish Government.

…→