Successful contact tracing systems
Proximity tracing vs. Presence Contact Tracing
The implementation of contact tracing systems is an important step for enhancing our ability to protect individuals from the spread of COVID-19. Contact tracing systems notify users if they’ve been exposed to an infected contact. Essentially, there’s two systems that can provide this. Proximity tracing and Presence tracing systems.
Proximity tracing systems aim to alert people who have come into close proximity with someone who has tested positive for Covid-19. The technology uses Bluetooth emitters to send out notifications and when two smartphone owners approach each other they exchange a timestamp key. However location services technologies are not 100% accurate. Some phones do use GSP to track location data but others use triangulating other phone signals to estimate location. Early in the development of such platforms, privacy activists criticized how the apps would handle privacy.
Presence tracing systems notify individuals who have been at the same location at the same time as someone who was tested positive. Epidemiological studies have shown that a higher prevalence of COVID-19 cluster illnesses occurs in crowded places, especially indoor spaces with limited ventilation such as restaurants, bars, concerts etc. Therefore presence tracing systems can identify more persons who potentially have been infected. However, also here depending what personal information is shared with the system there’s some concerns regarding individual privacy.
LAPIS’ contact tracing system enables presence tracing and requires only a user to check in into the location using a smartphone camera to scan the location’s QR code. With our contact tracing system, it's possible to perform presence tracing without revealing any user's identity. Further, we want to keep the information about which places were visited by SARS-CoV-2 positive persons as confidential as possible. However, to provide accurate data we do require for the first verify process the user’s phone number. The phone number will never be saved on a central server and encrypted from the moment the user completes the check-in.
LAPIS can comply with any contract tracing protocol used by municipalities. Our system does not enforce people to quarantine or get tested as we couldn’t preserve our strong user privacy policies. This system neither requires the venue to collect personal data for visitors such as name, email etc. nor to install a special hardware. In order to prevent population control by targeting sensitive locations private venues will retain full confidentiality and have no obligation to inform the local administration when they get contacted by health officials. Local Administrations have no overview per se in the presence contact tracing of venues.
Data Privacy
Phone numbers and Check In locations are the only personal data stored in the LAPIS server. Here is how we manage keeping that data safe.
Phone numbers are only used for verify process and won’t be saved to the data base. Phone numbers are encrypted and never displayed to the user or administrators and are only used to register the user's phone for Check In / Out functionality and for direct messaging to users within the App. A data breach will not expose real phone numbers.
Check In locations are identified by the unique encrypted QR code that is posted at the venue entrance. This QR code is the Location ID on the reservation and encrypts a URL in our platform containing longitude/latitude of the Location ID. This encrypted location ID is saved in the data base reservation record. A data breach would provide nothing that is identifiable or traceable.
When reservations complete and are Checked Out by the user or the system, the reservation record is marked for deletion. When reservations are marked as complete, the reservation record will be automatically deleted after 28 days, required by the regulation of EU countries, in accordance with GDPR. In Switzerland the contact tracing data will be irrevocably deleted after 14 days.
Types of locations supported
Nearly any spot where a person can walk up to and enter can have access controlled by LAPIS. SITES defined can be one defined area with many entrances, or many defined areas with one entrance each, it depends on the need.
Public Spaces (Squares, Beaches, Parks, Schools, Museums etc.)
Public Events (Fun Faires, City Festival, Carnival, Christmas Markets etc.)
Public Gatherings (Manifestation, Mass Vaccine Stations, Popular Tourist Spots, etc.
Private Venues with consumption of food or beverages (Beach Clubs, Casino Cruises, restaurants, country clubs, car shows, auctions, Tours, etc.)
Private Business where there is onsite purchase (Retail, beauty services, personal care services)
Emergency sites (emergency shelter)
Author
Michele Romano
Founder & CEO
Caddor GmbH
