Covid-19 app: 150,000 uninstalled app after August battery issue

HSE staff suggested a "win back" campaign after thousands deleted the Covid tracker app when a battery issue emerged. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

The HSE feared losing public confidence over a flaw in the Covid-19 tracking app that was draining the batteries of some mobile phones.

Internal emails reveal how 12,000 people had deleted the app within a matter of hours of the problem first being reported.

From August 7 to August 12, more than 150,000 uninstalls had been reported, according to records released under Freedom of Information. Within days, almost 30,000 had downloaded the app again and 40,000 new users had signed up, but the net loss of over  80,000 users prompted staff to suggest a 'win back' campaign.

The battery issue came to light in early August. The development team working on a fix were told it was needed “ASAP” and that time sensitivity on solving the problem was key.

One email said: “We’re back into a work week tomorrow and people will not be able to survive without a phone; the risk is that we lose public confidence and start seeing high rates of deletion.” 

Developers were also worried that fixing the issue might create new problems but were “sprinting” to push out an update for the app.

An email sent from Google to the HSE said: “This issue is our highest priority - we’ve been sprinting on a fix that we can push out as fast as possible without creating risk of inadvertently making things worse.” 

There was confusion, as well, over whether other fixes would work or not, and whether advice should be issued to the public.

Among the solutions put forward were clearing data from the phone, deleting the app and reinstalling, and clearing the mobile’s cache.

One message from the HSE Communications department said they needed to be particularly careful of “half-arsed fixes”.

Another message suggested the “sentiment on Twitter” was that people were willing to give the app a second chance if the issue could be resolved.

In a later message, the HSE were reassured it was safe to encourage people to start reinstalling the app.

The email also said that users who were still suffering from the “battery drain issue” would find it resolved when their phones updated.

Figures from later emails said there were up to 60,000 “uninstalls” but that of those, 10,000 had quickly reinstalled the app. An email said: “Are you considering any messaging to encourage reinstall?” 

In another message from Google, the HSE was reassured that the update had already been downloaded by the majority of users in Ireland.

It said, however: “We expect there to be a long-tail of devices that will eventually download the update over the next day or so, although some devices could take up to a few days.” 

By 10pm on August 10 – two days after the issue first arose – Google said about 70% of phones should have updated. A day later, an update said that figure had now risen to more than 95% with 99% expected in a few hours.

“If you hear of any new complaints about this, please let us know. Otherwise, we hope this matter has now been resolved,” said a message.

By August 13, the HSE was counting the cost of the battery issue with a total of 152,656 uninstalls reported between August 7 and August 12.

There had been 29,049 “returning users” while 40,245 “new devices” had signed up, still leading to a net loss of 83,362 users. An internal email said: “We would like to start on a win-back campaign.” 

A statement from the HSE said: “The issue did not affect all Android phones and fortunately we have seen many of the people that deleted the app download the app again.

“The impact of the app is significant. Over 1,500 people who have tested positive have chosen to alert their close contacts using the app and over 3,100 people have received a close contact alert and request a call-back from the contact tracing team.” 

They said they were seeing daily net growth of 1,500 devices every day. 

“Downloading the app is one very easy action people can take to reduce the need for additional restrictions in their county and live safely with Covid-19,” said the HSE.