RAPID: Location Tracking, Contact Tracing and Geospatial Privacy in COVID-19

美国的公共卫生系统有能力进行人工接触者追踪；然而，他们没有能力以应对COVID-19大流行所需的规模追踪个人。因此，开发接触追踪应用程序的工作正在进行中，这些应用程序使用个人设备中的移动跟踪技术（例如，GPS，蓝牙）来收集，存储和检索个人的位置和联系历史。本项目评估了公共卫生官员在COVID-19期间用于追踪接触者的移动位置跟踪应用程序的技术局限性，以减轻COVID-19。同时，本研究将解决地理空间隐私问题，包括1)对位置数据收集的通知和同意，以及2)个人身份识别的风险。该项目将提供开发更有效的接触者追踪系统所需的数据和结果。这项研究创建的数据库和出版物将有助于就接触者追踪在大流行的不同阶段应发挥的作用进行知情的公众辩论。随着公共卫生官员为应对COVID-19而扩大接触者追踪系统，了解这些系统何时何地可能最准确至关重要。为了满足这些需求，该项目将对在美国部署和开发的接触跟踪技术进行编目和评估。跨州的比较研究将有助于确定在不同区域环境中最有效的技术和做法。更广泛地说，本研究将通过解决新发展的移动位置跟踪技术的地理空间隐私以及这些技术如何有助于社会健康和福利来填补地理空间隐私文献的空白。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Public health systems in the United States have the ability to conduct manual contact tracing; however they do not have the capacity to trace individuals at the scale needed to respond to the COVID-19 pandemic. Consequently, work is underway to develop contact tracing applications that use the mobile tracking technologies (e.g., GPS, Bluetooth) in personal devices to gather, store, and retrieve an individual’s location and contact history. This project assesses the technological limits of mobile location tracking applications being used in COVID1-19 for contact tracing by public health officials to mitigate COVID-19. At the same time this research will address questions of geospatial privacy, including 1) notice-and-consent to location data collection, and 2) risk of personal identification. The project will provide data and results that are needed to develop more effective contact tracing systems. The databases and publications created by this research will contribute to an informed public debate about the role contact tracing should play during different phases of the pandemic.As public health officials expand contact tracing systems in response to COVID-19, it is essential to know when and where those systems are likely to be most accurate. To meet these needs, this project will catalog and evaluate the contact tracking technologies as they are deployed and developed across the United States. Comparative studies across states will facilitate the identification of the technologies and practices that are most effective in different regional environments. More broadly, this research will fill the gap in geospatial privacy literature by addressing geospatial privacy of newly evolving mobile location tracking technologies and how these technologies can contribute to the health and welfare of sociey.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.