Freddy Gray Freddy Gray

Is the Isle of Wight really the best place to launch a tracing app?

Isle of Wight Cliffs (photo: Getty)

Technology can save the world — from South Korea to Singapore to, um, the Isle of Wight. Oh yes. Britain is catching up at super-fibre-optic-lightning speed with the superpowers of tech in its fight against Covid-19. We’ve developed a snazzy ‘track and trace’ app, that’s already been trialled at an RAF base in Yorkshire, and the government now intends to roll it out in a pilot scheme on the lovely Isle of Wight and the Scottish Isles, Health Secretary Matt Hancock will announce on Monday. Sod the threats to privacy and liberty — let’s get people-monitoring done!

One small problem — the internet on the Isle of Wight doesn’t really work. Mobile telephone reception is notoriously rubbish; so too is broadband. It’s a common gripe down here. I wonder if the government has even thought about that.

The island is thought to be an excellent control group for the tracing pilot because it is ‘self-contained’.

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