Contact Tracing Proximity Data Exchange and Consolidation with App Design

A contact tracing system collects, stores, and processes proximity data to identify the contacts and the cases for an infection. A subject is a case when the subject is infected with specific symptoms or signs. A subject is a contact if the subject is likely infected but not having any infection specific symptoms or signs yet. Most of the currently deployed contact tracing solutions are built with Bluetooth LE in smartphones. Some solutions offer wearable alternative. The Bluetooth LE in smartphone is used in exchanging proximity data (PD) records with other smartphones within Bluetooth LE range. The exchanged records are consolidated to compute proximity distance and proximity duration for each subject in the data when needed. These two computed values are then used to identify contacts and cases as per the guidelines issued by the concerned healthcare authority. A poorly designed exchange and consolidation procedure could lead to loss of information, unreliable contact tracing system, and resource issues. The objective of this paper is to identify the design alternatives for data consolidation and evaluate the design options enabled by these alternatives. The design of a contact tracing App is proposed to estimate the volume of proximity data and complete these evaluations.