CheckpointCovid
Stop the Spread — Save Lives
If you follow the Axel Springer Tech Blog you might already have read about the #wirvsvirus hackathon we (Ideas Engineering) joined on March 20th. The hackathon’s goal was to generate ideas, concepts, approaches and technical solutions for fighting the Covid-19 pandemic and participation was HUGE!
Our Ideas Engineering team submitted the concept of a Covid-19 tracing app which would help limiting the spread of of the virus by notifying users as early as possible about being in contact with a positively tested person. Assuming that every person uses this app on their phone, the app registers two (or more) people who are spending time in close proximity so that this event can then be traced back as a potential point of infection. Warned individuals can place themselves in isolation even before they are tested positively themselves.
The Problem
Such a network can only work if as many people as possible are participating and carry their smartphones with them at any time. And this is where we saw our biggest problem. Without major popularity or public endorsement we won’t be able to convince a critical mass of people to join.
How can we reach the people of Germany, Europe or maybe even the World? This question was answered by Germanys federal government who announced their official support for the “Pan-European Privacy-Preserving Proximity Tracing” initiative (PEPP-PT). PEPP-PT reports that they are already supported by 130 corporations in 8 European countries who are basically developing what we designed on the #wirvsvirus hackathon. The big advantage of PEPP-PT is that they have the traction and public support to actually reach all European citizens and therefore make this strategy work.
The Pivot
When I wrote that PEPP-PT was implementing exactly what we designed, I did not mean that in a literal sense. We share the exact same motivation and use-case but the software design and utilization of sensory data differs. In the short time of the hackathon we created a mix of manual configuration and GPS data because they were easily available.
When we learned about PEPP-PT a solution to most of our problems was presenting itself. We immediately dropped our isolated tracking approach and joined the PEPP-PT initiative so that our app can join the pan-european network and this way maximize our reach. The beauty of this approach is that an arbitrary number of apps can use the PEPP-PT framework for connecting as many mobile devices as available. There is no need for pushing one single app into the population. The PEPP-PT core team is working on an SDK which developers can use to connect their app to the network and through this to the respective national health officials. On this level information can then be exchanged internationally. Now individual apps can follow national laws and regulations and at the same time cooperate on an international level.
The Innovation?
We are not the first to implement an app which aims for limiting the spread. For months China is already using an app which accomplishes exactly what we are trying to do and so do multiple other countries.
The chosen approach unfortunately is very problematic. Here, in order to achieve a maximum degree of safety, a maximum degree of transparency is introduced. China collects a vast amount of data through smartphones and therefore is capable of detecting breaches in social distancing guidelines, track movements and contacts of its citizens. As a European, this approach looks like a form of mass surveillance with no regards to privacy or voluntary participation. Even though this is a powerful and highly efficient way to fight the spread of the virus, this is not compatible with Europe’s privacy laws.
Europe’s special challenge is to motivate Europeans to participate voluntarily and to provide an anonymous system which fulfills all of Europe’s General Data Protection Regulations (GDPR). Designing a European app for proximity tracing requires strict usage of anonymization, encryption and sparse distribution of data.
With PEPP-PT we do not track locations or identify individual users. Devices generate dynamic IDs which have no indicator regarding their owner. Proximity is measured by peer-to-peer bluetooth detection. Registration of an infection is done by entering a TAN from the attending physician which is authenticated and used as a trigger to notify the network of registered devices. This event is also reported to the trusted authorities without any personal data.
This framework does not exist yet, but it is the innovation we need today to efficiently and effectively stop the spread in Europe without violating privacy law.
What comes next?
Right now we at Ideas Engineering are implementing a mobile app which will be compatible to the PEPP-PT framework. This will be one of many apps which will register via bluetooth with surrounding devices and protect their holders by notifying them of potential infections. We are going to release this as soon as possible because this app will literally save lives.
Update (17.04.2020)
An unexpected development makes it necessary to update this article. When I was writing about Europe’s efforts to create an SDK for contact tracing, I used the name PEPP-PT as synonym for the the shared initiatives of several Universities and companies to create a common network. To be more precise, we are using the development of DP3T (Distributed Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing), which is an open source project from EPFL, ETH Zürich, KU Leuven, TU Delft, University College London, CISPA, University of Oxford and University of Torino/ ISI Foundation. Surprisingly, the PEPP-PT organization removed their references to this protocol without any statement or clarification. Now, that PEPP-PT seems to distance themselves from DP3T, it is unclear what strategy for proximity tracing they will choose. Right now PEPP-PT does not share any details with the public and they do not react to our contact requests.
To summarize: When I was talking about the “PEPP-PT framework” in this article, I was referring to DP3T, not the organization PEPP-PT.
