NARASIMHAN KASTHURIRENGAN
SAN FRANCISCO, APRIL 5
Days after Aarogya Setu, an app created by the eGov Mobile Apps division of the National Informatics Centre (NIC), was rolled out on Google and Apple app stores by the Indian government to contain the spread of pandemic coronavirus, Europe has planned to use such technology in the European Union.
Singapore has already deployed a system using Bluetooth handshakes between smartphones to provide details of potential contact with people who tested positive for the Coronavirus.
A group of experts in Europe from eight countries said they would launch soon to develop smartphone technology capable of tracking people who had been in contact with individuals infected with Covid-19. This would help the health authorities act swiftly to halt its spread.
The Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing (PEPP-PT) organisation said it was working on a mechanism for contact tracing by using radio signals between devices, like Bluetooth. Those who do not have smartphones can use Bluetooth enabled armbands.
India and its premier institutes like IIT, IISc and researchers can join this initiative as it is volunteer-based. They can benefit by sharing the rich knowledge from the vast pool of talent, a local entrepreneur said.
PEPP-PT (pepp-pt.org) said the move would let national authorities release their apps which could use its technology to tackle the pandemic by anonymous “proximity-tracing”, which is deemed the appropriate method “to resuming a normal life, opening our borders, and restarting the economy”.
It would log connections made between smartphones on a device, rather than a central server, for two weeks, using strong encryption. Only local health authorities, deemed ‘trusted’ persons, could download data so they can notify people at risk of infection and tell them to go into isolation.
The initiative pledged to keep privacy at its core, as anything it provided would be “based on voluntary participation, provides anonymity, does not use personal data nor geolocation information, operates in full compliance with GDPR, and has been certified and tested by security professionals”.
PEPP-PT, which is being promoted up as a non-profit organisation based in Switzerland, had set up a partner management team to assist the more than 130 members which had already signed up till today, including scientists, research experts and companies. Vodafone Group has also backed the initiative.
The PEPP-PT project is similar to Singapore’s TraceTogether app but differs in some respects. It is believed by using country codes it can work across borders.
How will it work
To contain the virus, health officials need to track all the close contacts of a suspect without losing too much time. It starts with informing people if they have come into contact with another person who has been tested positive or is a suspected covid-19 case. Then begins the massive exercise of identifying and reaching out to all those who may have come in close contact with the confirmed case.
Often, people don’t remember, and in some cases, they hide their contact history which sets a lot of loose ends for the virus to spread.
The new app looks to solve this part of the problem. The app will have permission to use the phone’s Bluetooth and once it comes within proximity to another phone, it will identify the other device with its Bluetooth prints.
This feature will help identify if a person put under quarantine has come into close contact with another person. It’s a technical equivalence of one phone shaking hands with another while remembering the time and location of the meetup.
(Narasimhan Kasthurirengan, a former correspondent of Chennai-based The Hindu, is settled in US)
