Publication

Abstract : When an uninfected person is within 6 feet of an infected person for more than 15 minutes, the probability of COVID-19 transmission increases. Contact Tracing Apps aid people in COVID-19 infection prevention. Our proposed work focuses on developing a Contact Tracing App named CT-19 using Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE). When users run CT-19 App on their smartphone, it broadcasts and records unique private key along with private keys broadcasted from nearby smartphones. When a patient is informed that he/she has COVID-19 infection, the health authority uploads private key from their phone to a central server (only with the consent of patient). Periodically central server broadcasts these keys to all the users who has installed CT-19 App. Once broadcasted keys are received, CT-19 App checks whether any already stored keys match with this received broadcasted key. If it matches, then it implies that user was in physical proximity to an infected individual. Based on this information user can take some precautionary steps like undergoing COVID-19 tests/quarantine. When a user runs an app on his/her smartphone, user privacy is extremely crucial. Our proposed app CT-19 protects user privacy by neither capturing nor keeping the user's GPS or phone number.