Read on Twitter
1. Super Important Development (with privacy concerns galore)
One thing is clear. To reopen the economy we will need:
a) extensive testing capabilities.
b) extensive contact tracing capabilities to identify and isolate asymptomatic people who have been exposed.
One thing is clear. To reopen the economy we will need:
a) extensive testing capabilities.
b) extensive contact tracing capabilities to identify and isolate asymptomatic people who have been exposed.
2. Great progress has been made on testing availability through a toaster-sized Abbot Laboratories machine that delivers test results in as little as 5-15 minutes while you wait. Such machines are now being shipped for wider availability across the nation. https://twitter.com/bansisharma/status/1244742657848627200?s=20
3. What has not been clear so far is how extensive contact tracing can be implemented in the U.S. We know contact tracing was very successful in South Korea and Taiwan in containing the spread of the coronavirus. But in those countries privacy concerns are not quite as paramount.
4. Needless to say deploying technology to implement contact tracing is a natural and what is the single piece of technology in most people's hands already -- of course a smartphone. The biggest hurdle of course is how to implement contact tracing without compromising privacy.
5. A location tracking app aimed at preventing new outbreaks of the novel coronavirus has been developed by a project lead by Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The app is called Private Kit (or maybe that's an under-the-hood engine for developing apps on top).
6. Almost 20 state and municipal governments are considering introducing the app in their communities as soon as in the next two weeks, said Ramesh Raskar, an associate professor at MIT, in an email exchange.
7. MIT researchers and their collaborators said Private Kit can log an individual’s movements without jeopardizing their privacy. Their system relies on Bluetooth signals dubbed “chirps,” which are communicated between phones of Private Kit users.
8. Healthcare officials would ask users who test positive for the coronavirus to anonymously publicize their phones’ recent “chirps.” Any Private Kit user whose phone was close enough to infected users to register their phones’ chirps would be alerted about potential exposure.
9. This seems like a pretty innovative way to implement voluntary contact tracing on the part of all smartphone users who volunteer to notify of and be notified about coronavirus infection exposure.
10. It is purely an "opt in" in the sense that you download and install this single-purpose app only if you want to participate. Of course the system will only work well if a lot of people volunteer to participate. Convincing people of the built-in privacy protection will be key.
11. As of yesterday, the giants of the industry (Google and Apple) have joined forces to make this a reality. I am not sure whether they are going to use the Private Kit technology/concept or invent something different altogether.
12. Just the fact that the two industry giants have announced simultaneously that they will collaborate on an interoperable API speaks volumes in itself. Needless to say, it will raise privacy hackles galore.
13. Their challenge will be to explain the technology in layman's terms in a way that allays people's privacy concerns. I am not sure it is possible to do so, considering how wide and deep the distrust of these companies on the privacy front (quite justifiably) runs.
14. For may part, I will try my best to understand the technology deeply enough, if they decide to share enough details even if in technical language (I can speak and understand computer technology quite well), to render a verdict by deciding to download the app or not.
15. Of course everyone has to render their own verdict by making the same kind of decision to download the app or not. I hope the companies do a good job and demonstrate amply why we should trust them. It will be a huge service to the nation if they do.
16. Here is the Apple announcement: https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/1248657931433693184?s=20
17. And here is the Google announcement: https://twitter.com/sundarpichai/status/1248658168990711808?s=20
18. Considering the Apple CEO, Tim Cook, and the Alphabet CEO, Sundar Pichai sent out their respective tweets within a minute of each other indicates the high level of collaboration behind this effort. Godspeed!
The End
The End
By way of thinking through what I would like to see coming out of the Apple & Google collaboration I wrote the above thread about, I challenged myself to come up with a design I would find trustworthy. And I did. Here it is (meant for software engineers): https://twitter.com/bansisharma/status/1249375859313688576?s=20
Please re-tweet this thread to expose it to a lot of software engineers. Let us harness the technology to enable reopening of our economy. If you distrust the big tech companies, all the more reason to promote grassroots solutions that bypass big tech. https://twitter.com/bansisharma/status/1249375859313688576?s=20
