A survey of COVID-19 contact-tracing apps

2020

A number of groups, from governments to non-profits, have quickly acted to innovate the contact-tracing process: they are designing, building, and launching contact-tracing apps in response to the COVID-19 crisis. A diverse range of approaches exist, creating challenging choices for officials looking to implement contact-tracing technology in their community and raising concerns about these choices among citizens asked to participate in contact tracing. We are frequently asked how to evaluate and differentiate between the options for contact-tracing applications. Here, we share the questions we ask about app features and plans when reviewing the many contact-tracing apps appearing on the global stage.

CLEI Electronic Journal, 2022

Since the beginning of 2020, COVID-19 has had a strong impact on the health of the world population. The mostly used approach to stop the epidemic is the application of controls of a classic epidemic such as case isolation, contact monitoring, and quarantine, as well as physical distancing and hygienic measures. Tracing the contacts of infected people is one of the main strategies for controlling the pandemic. Manual contact tracing is a slow, error-prone (by omission or forgotten) process, and vulnerable in terms of security and privacy. Furthermore, it needs to be carried out by specially trained personnel and it is not effective in identifying contacts with strangers (for example in public transport, supermarkets, etc). Given the high rates of contagion, which makes difficult an effective manual contact tracing, multiple initiatives arose for developing digital proximity tracing technologies. In this paper, we discuss in depth the security and personal data protection requirements that these technologies must satisfy, and we present an exhaustive and detailed list of the various applications that have been deployed globally, as well as the underlying infrastructure models and technologies they used. In particular, we identify potential threats that could undermine the satisfaction of the analyzed requirements, violating hegemonic personal data protection regulations.

2020

UNSTRUCTURED We discuss the implementation of app-based contact tracing to control the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic and discuss its data protection and user acceptability aspects.

Cornell University - arXiv, 2020

Asia Pacific Journal of Public Health

The current COVID-19 (coronavirus disease 2019) pandemic has perpetuated a worldwide tussle to control this infection and minimizing death toll and economic damages. The year 2020 would always be remembered as a year of war against a virus, but it would also be marked as a year showing upsurge of technology evolution to deal with infections. Contact tracing has emerged as a new buzzword. Contact tracing digital tools have been introduced worldwide to prevent transmission. In this article, we have outlined various contact tracing apps being used globally, which are rated according to their safety, privacy, and efficacy.

Wireless Communications and Mobile Computing

The coronavirus pandemic is a new reality, and it severely affects the modus vivendi of the international community. In this context, governments are rushing to devise or embrace novel surveillance mechanisms and monitoring systems to fight the outbreak. The development of digital tracing apps, which among others are aimed at automatising and globalising the prompt alerting of individuals at risk in a privacy-preserving manner, is a prominent example of this ongoing effort. Very promptly, a number of digital contact tracing architectures have been sprouted, followed by relevant app implementations adopted by governments worldwide. Bluetooth, specifically its Low Energy (BLE) power-conserving variant, has emerged as the most promising short-range wireless network technology to implement the contact tracing service. This work offers the first to our knowledge full-fledged review of the most concrete contact tracing architectures proposed so far in a global scale. This endeavour does n...

IEEE Consumer Electronics Magazine, 2020

AS THE COVID-19 pandemic has gripped nation states around the world, technological fixes based on smartphone solutions have been proposed as a means to mitigate the risk posed to humans, prevent further economic loss, and overcome societal and business challenges. If health authorities and government agencies can track and trace the movement of the citizen at the most granular level, verify with whom they have had contact over a given period, then they can respond immediately by placing confirmed cases and suspected contacts in quarantine. By doing so, it is theoretically possible to minimize the level of exposure to the disease, particularly in high-density areas, before a potential outbreak happens, limiting the spread of a virus. 1 The location-based technologies proposed in response to COVID-19 are built primarily on the foundations of mobile commerce, encompassing a range of applications that can potentially utilize proximity details, identity, location data, and other condition information in the provision of value-added services to the end-user. 2 These technologies leverage a range of telecommunication standards, protocols, and features depending on the required functionality. That is, the technologies at work depend on the specific application or context within which they are implemented. For instance, location services can be instituted at varying levels of detail across the mobile value chain 3 : at the network level (determined by the mobile network provider), at the device level (edge device like a FitBit 4 ), at the operating system level (Android or iOS), at the app level (deployed by the local health authority or government agency).

Finnish Journal of eHealth and eWelfare, 2021

Digital technologies and telehealth, specifically contact tracing applications can complement traditional approaches for contact tracing of COVID-19 and overall COVID-19 control strategies. Despite the potential benefits of these novel approaches, concerns regarding privacy and basic rights have challenged application development and adoption. We explore the features of tracing applications, focusing on the trade-off between technical possibilities and privacy concerns. Our main objective is to map out central features of applied technology solutions that may prove as drivers or constrains for future development. Our secondary aim was to review how the effectiveness of tracing applications was being apprehended in research. We conducted a literature review of COVID-19 tracing applications and related privacy issues using the PubMed database. For analysis, we conceptualized contact tracing and data privacy. Our review identified various technologies with potential for contact tracing, with Bluetooth and GPS based solutions being the most common. Effectiveness of the applications is dependent on how widely these are adopted. However, technological approaches of the applications vary markedly, affecting their effectiveness for pandemic control. Privacy and trust are key limitations affecting application adoption. Existing privacy solutions are based on voluntary use, user consent, cryptographic data storage, minimum data collection, limited data usage, and transparency of the contact tracing applications and frameworks. Although evidence of applications' outcomes and benefits is yet tentative, the first evaluation frameworks for the applications are under development. In order to obtain maximum potential benefit from the applications, real-world evidence needs to be analyzed and evaluated carefully. However, along with contact tracing apps and comprehensive health programs, regulatory frameworks and safeguards are necessary to ensure that health information is not used for surveillance purposes and that app users' privacy is maintained.

https://www.ijhsr.org/IJHSR_Vol.11_Issue.4_April2021/IJHSR-Abstract.01.html, 2021

The Digital footprint we create in our modern lives through hour handheld devices and wearable gadgets is enormous. It was little known that, in the light of the recent outburst of the pandemic, this digital footprint would play an important role in contact tracing of the infected patients. This digital encounter tracing came into existence in order to relieve the Heath Authorities from the burden of manually tracking the contacts. Different countries developed a number of contact tracing apps based on the different architectures for the same purpose. This paper analyses the different intricacies of the architectures currently in use from the perspective of information storage, division of processing, capabilities and possible security concerns. Effort has been made in order to touch upon the possible attacks in each of the architectures. The paper concludes with the future research efforts in possible optimization of the architecture and the protocols, which in turn may lead to better contact tracing and containment of pandemic.

Digital Threats: Research and Practice, 2021

Globally, countries have been developing contact tracing applications to control the spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) disease. In this work, we present the findings of eight focus groups we conducted with participants living in France and Germany, to explore why they decided to adopt, or not adopt, a contact tracing application as well as understand how they perceived the benefits, drawbacks, and threat model of a contact tracing application.