RAPID: Decentralization and Privacy for Secure Vaccination Coordination

该项目的目标是开发和部署一个保护隐私、以用户为中心的数字解决方案，以加强疫苗接种协调，并为研究人员创建一个保护隐私的数据聚合平台。该项目将实现一种分散的、端到端的协议，该协议跨越了疫苗使用者的整个旅程，从登记分阶段接种到长期监测不良影响。该团队将从信任、隐私和包容性的角度考虑健康公平。目前的疫苗接种协调系统侧重于系统的单一部分，或者需要为每个疫苗接受者配备一部智能手机，这加剧了人们对公平的担忧。该项目通过一系列面向用户的解决方案解决了这些问题：可以离线操作的纸质疫苗接种卡上的二维码，以及没有实时互联网接入的手机应用程序。标准化的数据共享系统将全人群和个性化的信息整合在一个单一平台中，以提高干预的速度和有效性，在这种情况下，接种疫苗，以便可以监测和分析。这使得能够鸟瞰网络-物理-社会生态系统，而不会创建监控状态。该项目将推动数据驱动的预测分析在大流行应对和大流行准备方面的边界。该项目的目标是提供一个以用户为中心的解决方案，帮助研究人员和规划人员应对当前和未来的流行病。在这个项目中，用户的旅程和相关的身份识别数据收集分为四个部分：(I)使用数字签名优惠券进行分阶段接种的数字增强登记系统，(Ii)基于隐私保护二维码的疫苗接种卡和智能手机应用程序，以与疫苗接种站点交互，而不向中央服务器泄露任何个人身份信息，(Iii)通过数字签名的离线凭据以明显和安全的方式提供疫苗接种证明，(Iv)监测和警报不良反应系统，使用户能够以加密身份验证的方式上载他们的症状。该项目涉及为人口规模和个人规模分析建立具有不同粒度级别的数据聚合和数据传播解决方案。对于聚合，为了保护早期贡献者的隐私，该项目将使用基于安全多方计算的新一代技术。在传播方面，该项目将使用麻省理工学院研究人员发明的分裂学习和分裂推理方法，这些方法可能能够更好地解决隐私和效用之间的权衡。疫苗接种数据在所有三个层面都至关重要：(1)疫苗的后勤和监测；(2)疫苗接种工作流程；(3)接种前后的用户体验。该项目将在不侵犯个人自由的情况下，为今后的流行病和类似性质的紧急情况提供有效的数据收集监测系统的工具。这些系统和方法是由一个由流行病学家、工程师、数据科学家、数字隐私传播者、教授和来自不同机构的研究人员组成的联盟建立的。这种多样化的合作对于最大限度地减少对现有疫苗接种系统的破坏并确保在全国范围内顺利推出疫苗接种至关重要。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The objective of this project is to develop and deploy a privacy-protecting, user-centric, digital solution to enhance vaccination coordination and to create a privacy-preserving, data-aggregation platform for researchers. The project will enable a decentralized, end-to-end protocol that spans the entire vaccine user journey, from enrollment in phased vaccination to long term monitoring of adverse effects. The team will consider health equity from the perspective of trust, privacy, and inclusivity. Current systems for vaccination coordination focus on a single part of the system or require a smartphone for every vaccine recipient which aggravates the equity concerns. This project addresses such concerns through an array of user-facing solutions: QR codes on paper vaccination cards which can operate offline as well as mobile phone apps without live internet access. The standardized data sharing system consolidates both population-wide and individualized information in a single platform to increase the speed and effectiveness of the intervention, vaccination in this case, so that it can be monitored and analyzed. This enables a bird’s eye view of the cyber-physical-social ecosystem without creating a surveillance state. The project will push the boundaries of data-driven predictive analytics for pandemic response and pandemic preparedness. The project’s goal is to provide a user-centric solution that can aid researchers and planners of the current and future pandemics. In this project, the user’s journey and the relevant de-identified data collection is divided into four parts: (i) Digitally enhanced enrollment system for phased vaccination using digitally signed coupons, (ii) A privacy-preserving QR code based vaccination card, and a smartphone app to interface with vaccination sites without revealing any personally identifiable information to centralized servers, (iii) Proof of vaccination in a tamper-evident and secure manner available with digitally signed offline credentials, (iv) Monitoring and alert systems for adverse reactions that enable users to upload their symptoms in a cryptographically authenticated manner. The project involves building data aggregation and data dissemination solutions with varying levels of granularity for population-scale and individual scale analysis. For aggregation, to preserve the privacy of early contributors, the project will use a new generation of techniques based on secure multi-party computation. For dissemination, the project will use Split Learning and Split Inference methods invented by the investigator at MIT that may be able to better address privacy-utility trade-offs. Vaccination data is critical at all three levels: (i) logistics and monitoring of vaccines (ii) vaccination workflows and (iii) user experience before and after vaccination. This project will generate tools for an efficient data gathering monitoring system for future pandemics and emergencies of a similar nature without invasion of personal freedoms. The systems and methods are being built by a consortium of epidemiologists, engineers, data scientists, digital privacy evangelists, professors, and researchers from various institutions. Such a diverse collaboration is essential to minimize disruption to the existing vaccination system and ensure a smooth vaccination roll-out across the nation.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.