Why exactly is contact tracing still ineffectively carried out?

by Nephia Dalisay

Graphics by Princess Ventures

New challenges come with whole new innovations. The emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has sparked minds all over the world to carry out initiatives that aim to help authorities in mitigating the spread of the coronavirus. Many people, tech developers in particular, direct their efforts towards building different software and applications that focus on contact tracing, a process reported by experts to be essential in containing a disease outbreak besides the usual practice of social distancing and wearing of masks. With a large number of Filipino developers eager to build useful software, even our country does not fall behind in having these tools. So, with the wide array of these applications available to us, why exactly is contact tracing still ineffectively carried out?

Ever since the start of the lockdown, people understood the importance of being able to contain the virus. Consequently, a number of efforts to do just this commenced. Contact tracing applications in the Philippines started to surface even during the early days of the pandemic. StaySafe.ph, WeTrace, and CLEAR (Citizen’s Logistics and Early Assessment Report Tool) are some examples of software applications developed for COVID-19 contact tracing in our country. They are a combination of web and mobile apps available for consumption by the public. Created with varying technologies, these applications bear functionalities that allow for contact tracing, should users decide to participate. Each has its own gimmicks and features that are, without a doubt, useful for their purpose. Why, then, is contact tracing through these apps still unsuccessful? The following points below answer this question.

1. There is no assurance of data privacy and security.
   People are hesitant to use these new pieces of software because they are scared for the safety of their data. For effective contact tracing to happen, these contact tracing apps depend on obtaining data from their user base such as contact information, a person and their family’s health status, and even their geolocation–all very sensitive data. This is one of the reasons why despite the magnitude of contact tracing software available, the fruits of labor of these applications’ developers are scarce. People are not sure who to trust with their data. Submitting your name to an unknown source is one thing, but giving away your geolocation? Imagine what can happen when this type of data falls into the wrong hands. At worst, your safety may be compromised.
2. Some apps are inconvenient to use as resources are not always available.
   More than the fact that some contact tracing applications are accessible only on the web and not always on mobile, the resources with which users may access these apps are not always available to everyone all the time. For example, WeTrace, a contact tracing mobile app used by the province of Cebu, would only work if a device is always connected to the internet. This means that a person should always have their mobile data turned on especially when travelling to different locations. Let’s face it, not everyone can afford to have their mobile data turned on 24/7. Apart from it being heavy on a person’s wallet, mobile data that runs continuously drains your phone’s battery.
3. There is no one official contact tracing app.
   Since there is no established official contact tracing application in our country, especially one that is greatly encouraged by authorities for citizens to use, people are reluctant as they are not sure which app to use, being faced with so many different options. One of the government’s efforts is StaySafe.ph, a software project by the Interagency Task Force on Management of Emerging Infectious Diseases and the National Task Force to monitor the spread of the virus and conduct tracing. Unfortunately, not too many Filipinos are aware of the software’s existence. A contact tracing application will only be able to successfully perform its job if it has enough users. A Harvard Business Review article stated that for contact-tracing apps to stop contagion, adoption would need to be at least 60% of the population. The fact that so many applications are at our disposal may also be to our disadvantage because people are guaranteed to use different apps, most of which are not compatible to work with each other. This implies that data cannot be shared between applications, and therefore cannot be used to perform more accurate contact tracing.
4. There is poor compatibility across different devices.
   Some apps are available only on mobile, while some run only on your web browser and are mostly not mobile-friendly. Furthermore, there are applications available and compatible with Apple phones, but not with Android phones, and vice versa. This in itself contributes to which contact tracing apps people will choose to utilize. Of course, they will make use of something that is readily available to them, causing the division mentioned previously.

The effectiveness of contact tracing applications are hampered due to the reluctance of many people to even start using them to their full potential. Thankfully, there are individuals that foresaw these challenges posed by existing contact tracing applications, and decided to use their influence and reach to deliver a solution.

Starting April, engineers at Apple and Google have banded together to develop a software framework designed to aid authorities with their contact tracing efforts by allowing automatic logging of encounters between individuals using their Apple or Android smartphones. The system, called Exposure Notifications, came with an API that enables public health officials to build applications that notify users of possible exposure to confirmed COVID-19 cases. The way it works is that it would be a person’s choice whether to opt in Exposure Notifications or not. If they do decide to opt in this system, they will be led to install an official contact tracing application for their country or region in their smartphones. This app is controlled by local authorities, and makes use of the provided API to work with Exposure Notifications. Phones on iOS 13.7 and above, and Android 6 and above, may utilize the system.

In the Philippines, our official Exposure Notifications software is FastTrace, a contact tracing app developed by the same company that built StaySafe.ph. This application is still in the works to reach Android phones, but is already currently available to iPhones. To download FastTrace and connect to local authorities, a user has to opt in the Exposure Notifications system and select the Philippines as their region.

To go into more detail about the software framework, here are some points as to how this initiative by these two tech giants provide solutions to the challenges listed above:

1. It does not collect sensitive data.
   Unlike most contact tracing apps, Exposure Notifications does not collect your GPS data to use for proximity detection. Instead, it makes use of Bluetooth beaconing to transmit anonymous IDs from your device to other devices that have opted in. These anonymous IDs are key to the contact tracing process: every time your smartphone interacts with another opted in smartphone through bluetooth signals, these devices exchange IDs, which are then stored in each device. Now, if a person tests positive for COVID-19 and reports it on their app, everyone that has a copy of their ID in the last 14 days will get a notification saying that they might have been exposed to the virus. Additionally, these IDs change every 15 minutes to ensure that your identity is kept anonymous in the Exposure Notifications database. Digital contact tracing is performed while still being able to preserve the privacy of users. FastTrace, along with other Exposure Notification apps, does not ask for additional information from a user such as their name, contact details, and health status. It only allows you to report your COVID-19 diagnosis and lets you enter your case number to confirm a positive result.
2. The system is convenient and accessible.
   Since the system is built-in in Android and Apple phones, viewing information regarding your exposure to the virus has never been more convenient, as they are presented as easy-to-view notifications. In addition to this, being connected to the internet is not a requirement in order for contact tracing to work. The system relying on bluetooth technology, instead of mobile data and location services, makes itself a lighter and more accessible alternative to the apps that do depend on these.
3. It establishes official applications per region.
   There can only be one official contact tracing application per country or region– one that is managed by local public health authorities. To establish unity in the contact tracing platform a locality is using, Apple-Google permits only a single application for every country or region. This way, people are not confused as to what app they should download. The Exposure Notifications system leads them right to that official app in their region. Furthermore, since the collaboration of Apple and Google covers a wide range of smartphone users, more people are bound to participate in this type of contact tracing. According to Statcounter, about 99% of the mobile operating system market share worldwide belongs to Android and iOS in September 2020, proving the reality that most smartphone users own devices that can run the Exposure Notifications system.
4. The system is interoperable across devices.
   Apple and Google finally did what the world was not expecting from them — working together. Jokes aside, this joint effort from these companies proved to be very essential in our situation right now. Since they technically hold the largest percentage of all smartphone users, their collaboration allows for interoperability across almost all mobile devices in the world. iPhones can now share data with Android phones with no trouble and vice versa — finally making the world a safer place to live in despite the pandemic.

The Exposure Notifications system initiated by Apple and Google paves the way for better and more accurate digital contact tracing by using their wide reach and by introducing innovative ways to overcome issues of existing contact tracing software. In addition to what they have built now, Apple and Google engineering teams continue to work on developing their system to become more robust and accessible. The next phase of their project aims to eliminate the need for users to download a third party contact tracing application, and make opting in the system even more convenient.

Since almost everyone with a smartphone can use Exposure Notifications, the promise of digital contact tracing comes more and more to light, and even more people will come to realize the importance and impact of innovative technology.