There is also an app/project out of MIT called 'Private Kit', which is primarily designed to address the privacy issue.<p>[1] <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/mit-researchers-launch-location-tracking-effort-for-the-new-coronavirus-11585315674" rel="nofollow">https://www.wsj.com/articles/mit-researchers-launch-location...</a><p>[2] <a href="https://safepaths.mit.edu/" rel="nofollow">https://safepaths.mit.edu/</a>
Another project by a group of Czech volunteers:<p><a href="https://github.com/covid19cz/erouska-android" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/covid19cz/erouska-android</a><p><a href="https://github.com/covid19cz/erouska-ios" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/covid19cz/erouska-ios</a>
It's kind of far down in the page so I missed it the first time I scanned it.<p>"We are working around the clock to finalise our protocol reference documents and reference implementation, to open source what we have built, so that others may deploy their own flavours of TraceTogether - each implementing the BlueTrace protocol. We appreciate your patience in the meantime."
I feel like this would be a lot easier and have a higher rate of usage/compliance if our tech companies actually worked with people to release or opt-into sharing this information for when it's necessary (information which is already secretly shared with governments for security).<p>For the majority of people if they go to <a href="https://www.google.com/maps/timeline" rel="nofollow">https://www.google.com/maps/timeline</a> they'll have a tracker of everywhere they've visited and the time they were in each location.<p>If you could take people's accounts who've been infected and give them the ability to opt-into sharing this information you could have a pretty good source of information about the locations where they dwelled for long periods of time and who should go into self-isolation.
If this gets any sort of public traction it'll be built in to shop doorways, public transport, police cars, and street lights within a couple of months.
Update: has now been open-sourced [1]<p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/OpenTrace-community" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/OpenTrace-community</a>
I think in these extraordinary times, it’s nice to see the government proactively trying to do more to counteract the worst pandemic the country has ever seen. As much as we might all cry foul over the curtailing of freedom, there is a lot to be said in this current environment about contact tracers immediately knowing who a known covid carrier has come in contact with, which in turn means a speedier response from the medical teams.<p>That being said though, the app is absolute garbage on iPhone. Obviously not really their fault, but needing to have the app actively on for it to work is absolutely going to lead to people not bothering to turning it on.
I built a react native version: <a href="https://github.com/yonahforst/trackandtrace" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/yonahforst/trackandtrace</a><p>Looking for contributors!
It should be opt-in, if you don't opt-in,mandatory quara tine for you. And this should not be something they can renew after the crisis like the US Patriot act.
Sadly this won't happen in the US. Even if it's really private, people won't install it unless it's pushed down to them as an update from above, and no company will want to be the first to push it.<p>I suspect the bigger issue is people don't want to be told by an app that they need to go get tested.<p>Come to think of it, cities like New York could push it as part of a bigger, more comprehensive covid app...
I’m currently working on a community-run contact tracing app in the open: <a href="https://github.com/epicollect/epi-collect" rel="nofollow">https://github.com/epicollect/epi-collect</a><p>It is not a mobile app. You export your data from Google (thanks GDPR!), and filter out personally identifiable data points before submitting. We also let you know exactly who is about to use your donated data (we only allow academic researchers to have access), and give you advance notice so you can delete it if you don’t want your data to be used in a particular project.<p>We are MIT licensed and are figuring out how to make data donation safe via UX and engineering. We need all the help we can get - even if it’s just feedback. Feel reach out! Nessup@gmail.com