Written question asked by Lord Scriven (Liberal Democrat) on Thursday, 1 October 2020, in the House of Lords. It was due for an answer on Thursday, 15 October 2020. It was answered by Lord Bethell (Conservative) on Monday, 16 November 2020 on behalf of the Department of Health and Social Care.

Contact Tracing: Software

Question: To ask Her Majesty's Government who owns (1) the intellectual property rights, and (2) the commercial rights, of the algorithm that was developed for the NHS COVID-19 app to determine the distance between users and the length of time users have spent in proximity to each other.

Answer: The intellectual property associated with the National Health Service COVID-19 app, including the risk algorithm, is retained by the Department. In order to promote transparency, the source code for the app is published under Massachusetts Institute of Technology licence. This licence allows the Department to make the code Open Source whilst retaining its intellectual property rights related to the development of the NHS COVID-19 app.

Secondary information