MIT Reveals App That Identifies Potential Coronavirus Cases Using Bluetooth
A team led by MIT researchers and experts from many institutions has been working on developing a system that augments “manual” contact tracing by public health officials while preserving user privacy. The system relies on a smartphones’ ability to advertise its presence to other devices via Bluetooth. However, the main issue was interoperability for iOS and Android phones.
According to the team lead, MIT and makers of the app Private Kit: Safe Paths overcame the issue together last week. As of now, Safe Paths can keep a log of locations visited for 28 days. If a person tests positive, they can upload the list of phones their smartphone has interacted with over the past 14 days to a database. Other people can then scan the database to see if they were in close vicinity with the patient.
Ron Rivest, MIT Institute Professor and principal investigator of the project, explained:
I keep track of what I’ve broadcasted, and you keep track of what you’ve heard, and this will allow us to tel..