In order to solve the problem of privacy leakage in the contact tracing of traditional infectious diseases, such as the recent COVID-19 epidemic, we are developing a blockchain-enabled Privacy-preserving contact tracing smartphone application, named BeepTrace.
Based on a sharing concern about user privacy, there are two different modes of BeepTrace, BeepTrace-active, and BeepTrace-passive. The backbone of both approaches is the blockchain, and their main difference is in the method of generating contact information and the positive cases matching protocols. The sensing technology for active mode is Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), and Geographic Information System (PostGIS) is for passive mode. The detailed information is illustrated in these two articles: BeepTrace: Blockchain-enabled Privacy-preserving Contact Tracing for COVID-19 Pandemic and Beyond and Privacy-Preserving Contact Tracing and Public Risk Assessment Using Blockchain for COVID-19 Pandemic.
The following picture shows the settings of our Ethereum private chain, as well as the blockchain logs (uploading activity).
From the follwing screenshot of Geth client, all risky pseudo-IDs (desensitizing contact information from positive cases) are packaged into a block.
A demonstration on Ganache:
