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Content type: Examples
Asylum seekers and trafficking victims are being forced to travel miles on public transport despite lockdown restrictions because the Home Office has said they must continue to report to officials in person.
People who are awaiting a decision on their application to remain in the UK – including modern slavery victims and torture survivors – are required to regularly sign on at a Home Office reporting location.
This requirement was temporarily suspended in March because of the pandemic…
Content type: Examples
At least one immigration removal centre has already seen an outbreak of coronavirus, while detainees are left in limbo.
People who were released from detention centres at the start of the pandemic are being quietly locked up again despite the health risks and uncertainty caused by the second wave.
Detainees are having to isolate in Morton Hall detention centre after cases of Covid-19 were identified there last week, while those awaiting deportation are in limbo with flights repeatedly…
Content type: Examples
In early August, when the UK government announced it was purchasing 90-minute saliva-based COVID-19 tests called LamPORE and 5,000 lab-free machines to process them, supplied by DNANudge, clinical researchers were dismayed to find that there is no publicly available data about the accuracy or performance of these tests. While the tests could be a game-changer by offering rapid, on-the-spot testing with less discomfort for patients, no scientific research was offered to validate the tests, not…
Content type: Examples
Manchester-based VST Enterprises is developing a rapid COVID-19 testing kit intended to help restart stadium sporting events. The results of tests, which fans will take the day before the event they wish to attend and provide results within ten minutes, will be stored in VSTE’s V-Health Passport, a secure mobile phone app into which users enter their name, address, date of birth, phone number, and doctor information, plus a scanned official identity document against which the smartphone can…
Content type: Examples
By mid-July, the UK’s contact tracing system was still failing to contact thousands of people in areas with England’s highest infection rates. In London, with the sixth-highest infection rate in England, only 47% of at-risk people were contacted; in partially locked-down Leicester, the rate was 65%. The govt’s SAGE committee has said that 80% of infected people’s contacts just be contacted and told to self-isolate within 48 to 72 hours for the programme to be effective. Local councils are…
Content type: Examples
A gap in government guidance means that thousands of legal migrant key workers could be forced to choose between following new public health laws and destitution, according to Labour MPs and charities.
They are warning that no recourse to public funds (NRPF) conditions, which apply to roughly 1.4 million legal non-EEA migrants in the UK, could exclude thousands from the government’s new Test and Trace support programme, including many key workers.
They say the rules call into…
Content type: Examples
The Home Office moved dozens of asylum seekers involved in a Covid outbreak more than 120 miles despite an enforcement order saying they should remain in self-isolation for 14 days, the Guardian has learned.
Home Office contractors have been accused of being “beyond reckless” in their handling of the initial outbreak.
Among those who were moved despite the instruction to self-isolate, at least nine people were found to have Covid following testing, although the Home Office had initially said…
Content type: Examples
Migrants seeking asylum in Britain could be processed offshore under plans being developed by Priti Patel. Officials have ruled out Ascension Island and St Helena as impractical because of their distance from the UK but the Home Secretary is still seeking a third country where asylum seekers could be held while their applications are processed.
Sources close to Ms Patel countered criticism of the proposal by citing similar plans by Tony Blair when he faced a surge in illegal migrants crossing…
Content type: Examples
Thousands of asylum seekers currently accommodated in hotels are facing removal from the UK, the Home Office has announced.
A letter from the Home Office, seen by the Independent, states that evictions of refused asylum seekers will take place “with immediate effect” and charities have reported an increase in people being held in immigration detention centres.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2020/sep/19/home-office-plans-to-evict-thousands-of-refused-asylum-seekers
Writer: Diane…
Content type: Examples
The UK government has instructed bars, restaurants, hairdressers, and churches to record visitors’ contact details when they begin to reopen on July 4 so they can be contacted later if necessary for contact tracing and testing. However, the industry was given no guidance on how to take care of the potentially sensitive data. The ICO said it would monitor developments and assess the data protection implications. Experience in other countries has shown there are risks of abuse by staff.
Source:…
Content type: Examples
Germany’s contact tracing system is thought to have been critical in controlling the COVID-19 outbreak, especially given superspreader events such as infections in meat packing plants. Each of Germany’s 16 federal states is responsible for health, and together with the national Robert Koch Institute they support authorities at city or council level, who are responsible for outbreak investigation and management, including contact tracing.
The country dubbed COVID-19 a notifiable disease early,…
Content type: Examples
In the second week of operation of the UK’s contact tracing system a quarter of people who tested positive for COVID-19 could not be reached because they had not supplied phone numbers or email addresses. Of the close contacts whose details were provided, contact tracers reached 90.6% to advise them to self-isolate. Data from the first week also showed that only 75% of contactees could be reached within the target 24 hours; contact was made with another 13.6% within 48 hours, and another 8.6%…
Content type: Examples
In early August, when the UK government announced it was purchasing 90-minute saliva-based COVID-19 tests called LamPORE and 5,000 lab-free machines to process them, supplied by DNANudge, clinical researchers were dismayed to find that there is no publicly available data about the accuracy or performance of these tests. While the tests could be a game-changer by offering rapid, on-the-spot testing with less discomfort for patients, no scientific research was offered to validate the tests, not…
Content type: Examples
Manchester-based VST Enterprises is developing a rapid COVID-19 testing kit intended to help restart stadium sporting events. The results of tests, which fans will take the day before the event they wish to attend and provide results within ten minutes, will be stored in VSTE’s V-Health Passport, a secure mobile phone app into which users enter their name, address, date of birth, phone number, and doctor information, plus a scanned official identity document against which the smartphone can…
Content type: Examples
By mid-July, the UK’s contact tracing system was still failing to contact thousands of people in areas with England’s highest infection rates. In London, with the sixth-highest infection rate in England, only 47% of at-risk people were contacted; in partially locked-down Leicester, the rate was 65%. The govt’s SAGE committee has said that 80% of infected people’s contacts just be contacted and told to self-isolate within 48 to 72 hours for the programme to be effective. Local councils are…
Content type: Examples
Following trials in Leicester, Luton, and Blackburn with Darwen, the UK government will assign teams of health care professionals to more than ten local authorities and offer them Public Health England’s near real-time data on infections and a dedicated team of contact tracers, shifting away from its £10 billion centralised national system run under contract by Serco. As of early August, the Serco scheme was still failing to reach a significant proportion of those who had been in close contact…
Content type: Examples
Human rights experts have accused the home secretary, Priti Patel, of ignoring legal guidance in an attempt to target child asylum seekers who cannot prove they are under 18.
A letter from the Home Office, seen by the Observer, reveals that the government is putting pressure on social workers to speed up the age assessment of unaccompanied minors, and offering to bankroll councils that face legal challenges as a result. The move comes as new evidence shows that hundreds of people were deported…
Content type: Examples
As part of its pandemic-related emergency measures, in April the Scottish government extended the deadline for public bodies to respond to freedom of information requests to 40 days. A month later, it was forced to withdraw the changes after opposition parties on the Scottish parliament's COVID-19 committee voted them down. FoI deadlines will revert to 20 working days, as previously. MSPs also passed an amendment requiring the Scottish government to report to parliament every two months on its…
Content type: Examples
The outsourcing company Serco, which the UK government has contracted to perform contact tracing, accidentally shared the email addresses of almost 300 of the contact tracers it hired when a staff member sent an introductory email and used CC rather than blind CC. Serco does not intend to refer itself to the Information Commissioner's office.
Writer: Ross Hawkins
Publication: BBC
Content type: Examples
Soon after the UK began reopening pubs with the requirement that staff retain customer details in case they are needed later for contact tracing, a woman reported on Twitter that the next day the bartender messaged her on Facebook. The story was picked up by Refinery29 and the Independent, but taken down at her request. On Twitter, numerous women responded to highlight similar experiences.
https://twitter.com/roselyddon/status/1281885086347075588
https://twitter.com/katebevan/status/…
Content type: Examples
The UK had unrealistic expectations for antibody testing; as early as April health secretary Matt Hancock was suggesting that antibody testing could form the basis for immunity passports even though it is still uncertain whether and for how long SARS-CoV-2 confers immunity to further infection. Prime minister Boris Johnson’s enthusiasm for antibody tests, which he called a “game-changer”, led the UK government to pay £16 million up front for tests from two Chinese companies, which proved in…
Content type: Examples
In London, during the UK’s coronavirus lockdown, young black men were stopped and searched by police 21,950 times with no further action taken in 80% of cases. If each individual were searched only once - which may not be the case - that would equate to 30% of all young black males in London. The Metropolitan police increased its use of stop and search during the lockdown, carrying out 43,000 stops in May 2020, more than double the number in May 2019. The Met responded that crime is also not…
Content type: Examples
Britain’s Cabinet Office awarded an £840,000 contract for researching public opinion about government policies, portions of which involved conducting focus groups related to Brexit rather than COVID-19, to Public First, a company owned by two long-term associates of Minister for the Cabinet Office Michael Gove and special advisor Dominic Cummings, without putting the work out to tender. The government used COVID-19 emergency regulations allowing services to be urgently commissioned to justify…
Content type: Examples
Governments in Norway, Britain, Qatar, and India, among others, have had to either drop or remediate the contact tracing apps they’ve released to help combat the coronavirus due to the rush in which they were released. Many had security flaws that risked exposing user data; others pose privacy and security risks due to the amount of data they collect. While the apps may be helpful in countries like South Korea, where the medical infrastructure exists to do mass testing and isolation, digital…
Content type: Examples
All migrants arriving in the UK since June have been ordered to quarantine, but a Border Force source said that little is being done to ensure the rules are followed and some in emergency accommodation are being given vouchers to go to the shops.
Thousands of British tourists returning from France are now being forced to self-isolate for 14 days whilst those it is understood that some of those crossing the Channel on small boats migrants are still going shopping for food.
The Home Office…
Content type: News & Analysis
In the last few weeks, the UK government has announced various new measures to ensure that crossings across the Channel were “inviable” including by appointing a new role of “clandestine Channel threat commander" and further plans to deploy the navy to stop migrants from crossing to the UK from France across the Channel. Premature plans it seems, as not only would such measures be contrary to the UK’s international obligations to allow individuals to seek asylum in the UK, but also since such…
Content type: Examples
After ORG asked questions via its legal representative, AWO’s Ravi Naik, the UK’s Department of Health and Social Care agreed to change the period it would retain Test and Trace data from 20 years to eight. Public Health England manager Yvonne Doyle explained that the novelty of COVID-19 was the reason for keeping the data longer, in case PHE needed to get back in touch with those who had tested positive with additional information.
Publication: ZDNet
Writer: Daphne Leprince-Ringuet…
Content type: Examples
In early July the Open Rights Group issued a pre-action legal letter to UK health secretary Matt Hancock and the Department of Health and Social Care saying they have breached requirements under the Data Protection Act 2018 and GDPR by failing to conduct an impact assessment for the Test and Trace system. ORG and its lawyers, AWO, had been asking for details of the DPIA since the beginning of June, a few days after the system was launched. In their response, the DHSC’s lawyers said “there were…
Content type: Examples
Testing for All is helping small employers and individuals access antibody tests by making them available at £42 each out of fear that “testing inequality” could fuel greater financial inequality, as private schools and big businesses have introduced testing to allow pupils and employees to return to school and work but state schools and small businesses are left to rely on the state. Among the employers adopting antibody testing for staff are Credit Suisse, Ocado, and Premier League football,…
Content type: Examples
Premier League football has set up a COVID-19 testing programme that it says should soon allow socially-distanced fans to return to stadiums using technology from a company called Prenetics, which is also delivering testing for the England cricket team. Prenetics’ digital health passport links an individual’s testing history to their mobile phone; a negative result generates a QR code supporters can scan to access venues.
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11661/12025028/premier-league-…