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Article

Contact Tracing: Ensuring Privacy and Security

by
Daan Storm van Leeuwen
1,†,
Ali Ahmed
2,*,‡,
Craig Watterson
2 and
Nilufar Baghaei
3,4,‡
1
Department of Computer Science, University of Liverpool, Liverpool 11341, UK
2
School of Engineering and Computer Science, Victoria University of Wellington, P.O. Box 600, Wellington 6140, New Zealand
3
School of Natural & Computational Sciences, Massey University, Auckland 0745, New Zealand
4
School of Information Technology and Electrical Engineering, University of Queensland, St Lucia, QLD 4072, Australia
*
Author to whom correspondence should be addressed.
Current address: Mathematical Sciences Building Campus, Albany, NY 12207, USA.
These authors contributed equally to this work.
Appl. Sci. 2021, 11(21), 9977; https://doi.org/10.3390/app11219977
Submission received: 27 September 2021 / Revised: 18 October 2021 / Accepted: 19 October 2021 / Published: 25 October 2021
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Advances in Information Security and Privacy)

Abstract

Faced with the biggest virus outbreak in a century, world governments at the start of 2020 took unprecedented measures to protect their healthcare systems from being overwhelmed in the light of the COVID-19 pandemic. International travel was halted and lockdowns were imposed. Many nations adopted measures to stop the transmission of the virus, such as imposing the wearing of face masks, social distancing, and limits on social gatherings. Technology was quickly developed for mobile phones, allowing governments to track people’s movements concerning locations of the virus (both people and places). These are called contact tracing applications. Contact tracing applications raise serious privacy and security concerns. Within Europe, two systems evolved: a centralised system, which calculates risk on a central server, and a decentralised system, which calculates risk on the users’ handset. This study examined both systems from a threat perspective to design a framework that enables privacy and security for contact tracing applications. Such a framework is helpful for App developers. The study found that even though both systems comply with the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), Europe’s privacy legislation, the centralised system suffers from severe risks against the threats identified. Experiments, research, and reviews tested the decentralised system in various settings but found that it performs better but still suffers from inherent shortcomings. User tracking and re-identification are possible, especially when users report themselves as infected. Based on these data, the study identified and validated a framework that enables privacy and security. The study also found that the current implementations using the decentralised Google/Apple API do not comply with the framework.
Keywords: contact tracing; COVID-19 pandemic; security; privacy; mobile application contact tracing; COVID-19 pandemic; security; privacy; mobile application

Share and Cite

MDPI and ACS Style

Storm van Leeuwen, D.; Ahmed, A.; Watterson, C.; Baghaei, N. Contact Tracing: Ensuring Privacy and Security. Appl. Sci. 2021, 11, 9977. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11219977

AMA Style

Storm van Leeuwen D, Ahmed A, Watterson C, Baghaei N. Contact Tracing: Ensuring Privacy and Security. Applied Sciences. 2021; 11(21):9977. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11219977

Chicago/Turabian Style

Storm van Leeuwen, Daan, Ali Ahmed, Craig Watterson, and Nilufar Baghaei. 2021. "Contact Tracing: Ensuring Privacy and Security" Applied Sciences 11, no. 21: 9977. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11219977

APA Style

Storm van Leeuwen, D., Ahmed, A., Watterson, C., & Baghaei, N. (2021). Contact Tracing: Ensuring Privacy and Security. Applied Sciences, 11(21), 9977. https://doi.org/10.3390/app11219977

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