GoCoronaGo: Privacy Respecting Contact Tracing for COVID‑19 Management

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic is imposing enormous global challenges
in managing the spread of the virus. A key pillar to mitigation is
contact tracing, which complements testing and isolation. Digital apps
for contact tracing using Bluetooth technology available in smartphones
have gained prevalence globally. In this article, we discuss various
capabilities of such digital contact tracing, and its implication on community
safety and individual privacy, among others. We further describe
the GoCoronaGo institutional contact tracing app that we have developed,
and the conscious and sometimes contrarian design choices we
have made. We offer a detailed overview of the app, backend platform
and analytics, and our early experiences with deploying the app to over
1000 users within the Indian Institute of Science campus in Bangalore.
We also highlight research opportunities and open challenges for digital
contact tracing and analytics over temporal networks constructed from
them.