British people will soon begin receiving random phone calls from so-called "contact tracers" warning them about having been in close proximity with potential coronavirus carriers. One of many problems with this scheme is it's dangerously easy to pose as a government contact tracer.
As detailed by the NHS, contact tracers will phone up and text people who report coronavirus symptoms to the government and demand lots of personally identifiable information – including information on other people.
What safeguards are in place? Er, not many. They'll call from a published phone number – 0300 013 5000 – and, bizarrely given the context, UK.gov promises its hired call centre won't "disclose any of your personal or medical information to your contacts".
Such a scheme bears all the hallmarks of cold-calling scammers, and indeed contact tracer spoofing already happening dangerously simple
