Bluetooth helps fight COVID-19

As the new coronavirus pandemic swept the world, contact tracing came into the limelight as epidemiologists scrambled to identify and isolate potential disease vectors. Due to limited technology, authorities had to rely on manual methods. These methods are time-consuming and have limited reliability, as they rely on the ability of the infected individual to remember the person who has contacted everywhere. However, more rigorous tracking methods, such as GPS location tracking, are not accepted as a controversial privacy breach.

Researchers at MIT and other institutions have intervened to fill this gap by developing a network where public health authorities can identify contacts for COVID-19-positive patients while keeping data private. You. The system relies on digital “chirp”. This is a short-range Bluetooth signal represented by a long string of random numbers. Strings are constantly changing and cannot be traced to a single individual.

Smartphone support, privacy protection COVID-19 contact tracking. Image Credit: MIT Lincoln Laboratory

Bluetooth tracking has been around for some time, allowing smartphones to broadcast their presence. Apple’s Find My Phone system works on the same principle: a lost device sends a chirp, which is picked up by other surrounding Apple devices and sent to Apple, where its location is decoded.

When you enable your smartphone with this app, such random chirps will be sent regularly and your own signal will also be logged. Only log signals from other phones if they are within a 6-foot radius and are very close.

Interoperability, the ability of the iPhone to receive signals from Android phones and vice versa, has been one of the most challenging issues in developing new systems. It was overcome last week by a group of technicians. SafePaths, MIT’s initiative to tackle COVID-19 while maintaining privacy, conducted initial research on automated, private contact tracking. The feasibility of a Bluetooth tracker system is based on this work.

Ron Rivest, principal investigator of the project and a professor at the MIT Institute, said that the strength of this project was “ using cryptography, not only anonymous but also pseudonymous, random rotation speed that constantly changes IDs “And it can’t be traced back to the individual.”

Later, if COVID-19 is determined to be positive, the person can download the app and use it to scan the QR code received from the medical service. This allows the infected person to upload the logged chirp to the cloud. These logs can be scanned by other users of the same app. If the chirp matches, a notification will be issued to notify the user how long and how close the infected person has been in the past two weeks.

This notice will also advise you on the next steps, depending on your local public health protocol. This is everything from self isolation to COVID-19 testing. “The technology also offers the flexibility to control how public health authorities want to manage contact with exposed cases in specific areas. Dr. Louise Ivers, Medical Advisory Team Leader, said, You.

By using chirp to log contact between devices, even random strangers can keep track of personal information while protecting it.

If most people with a smartphone and a valid app scan every day, they will know if they were in contact with the infected person without having to know who the infected person was. Tracking large contacts using this system has two benefits. This will allow authorities to pinpoint exposed individuals and avoid unnecessary isolation while allowing people to go on business if the pandemic shows signs of retreat. “We want to be able to carefully return people to normal life, but we also have this ability to carefully isolate and identify specific vectors of occurrence,” said Rivest.

The team proceeded with prototyping and licensing, met with major companies such as Apple, Microsoft, and Google, as well as state and federal agencies, and began implementing a tracking system. The Massachusetts Global Hospital Center for Global Health, CSAIL, MIT Lincoln Laboratory, Boston University, Brown University, MIT Media Lab, Wiseman Science Institute, and SRI International are some of the contributors who have helped develop public health projects. Rivest and his team look forward to playing a central role in other efforts across the country and in Europe to develop a similar privacy-first contact tracking system.

Rivest concludes: “In order for this system to work, the majority of the population needs to opt-in. Bring out all Bluetooth devices. It’s important to make this an entire ecosystem. Part of many people to let you. “