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Users of the contact tracing app in England and Wales have reported receiving updates that incorrectly indicated that the level of risk in their area had changed, after Sky News understood that it was a mistake from the app’s developers.
The Department of Health and Social Care confirmed the error, but did not say how many people it had affected.
One expert told Sky News that he believed up to four million people might have received incorrect updates for what he described as “a big toe error.”
The problem was noticed by some of the app’s 16 million users on Friday night, who took to Twitter to complain that the level of risk for their area had changed in a way that contradicted official government guidance.
Several users in Liverpool, the first city in the country to be included in the strictest Level 3 category of restrictions for very high risk areas, said their apps had incorrectly sent them an alert telling them they were being downgraded from very high risk to high.
App users in Sheffield, Nottingham and parts of the Midlands said they had been incorrectly notified that their risk alert level had been reduced to medium.
“We live in Walsall and it is classified as HIGH risk,” wrote one. “Why have we all received an alert that says our risk level has changed due to ‘increased risk levels’ and is now MEDIUM? This is very confusing.”
An expert who was monitoring the app at the time the error occurred said the problem was almost certainly caused when a blank file was accidentally sent to phones instead of an alert level update.
“I was monitoring the changes to the application to see if they were addressing any of the issues that had been raised about risk level mixed messages,” said Jeremy Place, an information security specialist.
“I noticed the file was empty from 6:21 PM for about an hour.”
A recent update to the app changed the postal code alert system to align it with the new government tier classifications.
Previously, you had three alert levels: low, medium, and high. The update changed them to medium, high, and very high.
Any phone that received the empty file would have reverted to the old system, Place said, generating an incorrect alert level and triggering a message that said, “The risk area in your area has changed.”
Several users reported the problem on social media by placing two phones with different alert levels next to each other.
The phone with the wrong alert level displayed the previous alert level format, confirming Mr Place’s analysis.
Place, which operates its own QR registration app, said the ZIP code alert level was updated on phones every four hours, but believed that not all apps were downloading the new files at the same time.
Normal practice, he said, would be to distribute downloads to reduce stress on the system, which is why a quarter of applications are updated every hour.
As the empty file was available for about an hour, around a quarter of the phones could have been affected by the error.
“We are informed that 16 million phones have downloaded the contact tracing application. If those phones are still running the application, then it could affect four million people,” said Mr. Place.
However, he added that only people who have updated their apps to incorporate the latest change would be affected.
When asked how bad the error was, Mr. Place, an experienced systems architect, described it as “a big toe error” with “no technical risk.”
But, he said: “What has been lost is the reputation aspect. You are losing the reputation which is very important to this application.”
To correct the error, the team behind the application sent another file at 19.31. As a result of this update, many more phones would be sent a message saying that their alert level had changed, although the results of this second alert would be correct.
Message received by NHS track and trace application if you need to isolate yourself. Photo: Roland Manthorpe
The news is the latest challenge for the contact tracker app, which has been criticized for sending false alarms telling people they have been close to someone who tested positive.
These messages, which are sent automatically by the Google and Apple system on which the application has been built, have caused widespread anxiety among users.
The Department of Health and Social Care has said that false alarms should be ignored and that instructions for isolating will be clarified within the app.
When asked about the incorrect risk level alerts, a DHSC spokesperson said: “We are aware of an issue that affected ZIP code alerts updates for some users of the app.
“This was identified and resolved within an hour and users’ phones will automatically update to show the correct local alert level for their area along with new guidance.”
