MIT is developing an app to protect the privacy of patients with Wuhan pneumonia!

A privacy expert from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) has developed a tracking app related to the novel coronavirus, which can inform you if you have had contact with confirmed patients without compromising your privacy.

MIT is developing a solution called "Private Kit: Safe Paths" with the main goal of protecting individual privacy while preventing epidemics. According to the project, many countries worldwide are currently attempting to track locations through smartphones to identify the contact history of COVID-19 patients, which raises concerns about mass surveillance.

Although it is quick and effective for governments to work directly with relevant businesses to track patients' movements, there is a risk of unnecessary disclosure of patients' personal information during the process of government-provided lists being traced by telecom operators. In this era heavily reliant on the internet, the value of personal data is often overlooked. Incidents like the Facebook Cambridge Analytica scandal have shown how private service providers holding personal data can lead to leaks or profit-making. The balance between convenience and privacy remains a challenge in the tech world.

Privacy-Oriented Epidemic Prevention

MIT believes that through their open-source technology, users can control their data under a "privacy-first" premise, providing an alternative method for contact tracing based on an app.

This privacy solution consists of two main components: the mobile app "Private Kit: Safe Paths," allowing users to load location data and timestamps recorded in their Google accounts, updated every five minutes. The other component is the public notification platform - web app "Safe Places."

Confirmed users can voluntarily provide their "movement history" to public health authorities, while the general public can receive partially concealed "movement history" information released by public health agencies through "Safe Places." To protect the privacy of confirmed patients, these movement records are not publicly disclosed as they are.

According to the project, for healthy users, their location data remains encrypted and stored on their phones. Only in the event of a diagnosis will the "movement history" be exported without leaking personal privacy data.

However, this project is still in the experimental phase, and its ability to keep pace with the epidemic remains to be seen upon official release.

Taiwan's Open-Source "Wuhan Pneumonia Tracking" Tool

The online community "g0v" initiated by Taiwanese designers launched an open-source code "Wuhan Pneumonia Historical Track Matching" website in early March. The program uses Google account location functionality on smartphones to track user movements, comparing them with the government's published confirmed case movements. Regarding privacy, the project's website states that user movement data is only compared locally and not uploaded externally.

The downside is the scarcity of confirmed movement comparison data. As of the deadline, according to the Ministry of Health and Welfare statistics, there have been a total of 252 confirmed cases, but the platform currently only has official tracking data for 25 cases, far below the actual situation.

In comparison, the Taiwan Central Epidemic Command Center's tracking solution for the Diamond Princess cruise ship is more direct and effective: the Executive Yuan tracked visitors who disembarked at Keelung Port on January 31, creating a complete tracking map using movement data provided by the four major telecommunications companies. However, it is challenging to prevent telecom operators from disclosing personal data during the handling process, compromising privacy.

If these two Taiwan cases were combined with MIT's solution, allowing all users to confidently record their "movement history" autonomously and report to public health authorities in the event of a diagnosis, Taiwan's epidemic prevention strength might increase, enhancing individual privacy protection.

China's "Health Code" Violates Privacy, Opening Opportunities for Blockchain

China's advanced electronic payments have played a powerful monitoring role in epidemic prevention. The state-owned enterprise Alipay in China launched "Alipay Health Code", requiring individuals to show their health status rating at controlled entry and exit locations (subway, malls, etc.) for clearance.

Alipay possesses a vast amount of user data, allowing for highly efficient control over confirmed patients through user self-reporting and information provided by relevant departments.

However, this has prompted Chinese blockchain companies to seek more advanced solutions. A blockchain company in Shanghai stated that this health data is stored in a centralized database, and users do not have ownership of personal data. Therefore, developing an app to record personal health data on the blockchain, where users can truly own their data, not owned by private institutions, and can voluntarily share movement history and health status, is the goal.

Identity verification has always been an area of exploration for blockchain applications. Being able to manage identity information independently without revealing too much personal information, facilitating smooth interactions with the outside world, is a promising future achievable through blockchain technology.

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