Virus hunters on your smartphones
Privacy concerns are being raised but it’s better being safe than sorry
We are playing it by the ear. Countries that underwent various degrees of lockdown are now gradually relaxing restrictions. With so many unknowns, we are on the cusp of many possibilities. We are in the fuzzy space of containment zones, some business activities, but not all, and limited movement with social distancing and germ-killing gateways.
While the wait for a vaccine and treatment is on, the Covid-19 battle-weary world is hanging by a thread. That thread is called contact tracing. This is a key intervention tool against the virus, especially as the lockdown is lifted. The World Health Organization (WHO) calls it the backbone of a country’s response to Covid-19. With limited resources at our disposal, government health authorities have no option but to ramp up contact tracing.
The Covid-19 tracers are our real-world vampire hunters. They started with a contact tracing plan that was firmed up during outbreaks like Ebola and Mers. Initially, we relied entirely on a manual process of interviewing patients. It is an onerous task to go after those who were in close contact with the infected person, especially the super-spreaders — who have a mysteriously inordinate power to spread the virus. You cannot scale this process unless you throw an army of contact tracers at the problem. Some countries did exactly that, while others worked with some form of automation via an app. Singapore’s contact tracing app added the Bluetooth function that maintained a log of all the people one was in close contact with. If one tested positive, the logs helped identify all the people exposed. The UAE has a similar app called TRACECOVID. The WHO is developing its own app for countries who don’t have the technical wherewithal to develop such an app.
There are two things that matter in contact tracing. The distance and time of exposure. You need to be within a couple of metres for at least 5-30 minutes for the contact to be logged. The overall architecture is either a centralised one, where the data gets aggregated in a government-managed remote server, or a federated model in which the data sits on the individual phones. In both architectural designs, the contact record gets an anonymised ID.
Yet challenges persist. The Bluetooth function does not work well on apps working in the background on iPhones. Some countries are combining Bluetooth with GPS location data for more accurate information. India and Norway are using this approach, which has triggered privacy concerns. Critics are worried that such apps can be a happy hunting ground for hackers and unethical entities. One way to allay such fears is to open-source the software code. Let the community improve on the security plumbing of the software.
We are not just battling with locating those exposed to the virus but also false positives, which unnecessarily strains the already limited resources.
Scientists are developing models based on social graphs. But they lack an understanding of the structure of the community transmission and a real world understanding of social networks. A higher occurrence of super spreader adds to the complexity.
As contact tracing evolves, some things will change forever. During any future outbreak we will be required to activate a government-approved contact tracing app on our smartphones. Singapore’s SafeEntry is a mandatory tool for digital check-in at workplaces, malls, hotels, schools and other public places. Digital check-in may become a universal practice in time to come.
Community has taken precedence over individual freedom. Those asserting their right to individualism seem out of place when survival is in question. Yet we cannot underrate the value of responsibly handling personal data. In an era of social distancing, it is only natural that we have to rely on digital handshakes to trace proximity. Ironically, machines appear less hazardous than humans today. While contact tracing is still an evolving technology, an imperfect solution is better than no solution at all.
We are not just battling with locating those exposed to the virus but also false positives, which unnecessarily strains the already limited resources.