A Review of COVID-19 Mobile Contact Tracing Applications and Their Impact on Privacy

Tracing Technology

Contact tracing technologies fall into two basic categories—case management tools and proximity tracing (exposure) notification tools. Case management tools are what some in the IT industry might call “back end” tools. They are used for the management of data on patients and contacts. The US Centers for Disease Control (CDC) says “case management tools can”: 1) “provide workflow support to assign and manage communication and follow up with patients”, 2) “notify patients of a forthcoming call from the health department to increase likelihood of call acceptance”, 3) “generate secure, confidential electronic surveys for the patient to fill out to provide a head start on the patient interview”, 4) ”send daily, automated phone, email, or SMS illness or symptom monitoring checks, reducing the phone call burden required by case investigation staff”, and 5) “alert health systems when referrals and support services are recommended or required” (CDC, n.d.).

The second category of contact tracing tools, what some in the IT industry might call “front end” tools, are proximity tracing (exposure) tools. Proximity tracing tools are designed to work on smartphones. They typically utilize both GPS and Bluetooth technologies to help estimate the duration and proximity of the user’s exposure to a patient previously diagnosed with COVID-19.

The CDC lists several potential advantages to using GPS and Bluetooth based proximity tracing tools: