HenryKay1
commented
3 years ago Hey, I ranked this proposal at the top of my personal list, because it addresses a problem we currently face as humans. Covid cases are skyrocketing and we somewhat have a duty as humans to protect us, and I feel this app could be off some serious help. Obviously people can transmit Covid, without even knowing they have it, and these contact tracing notifications based on their locations could help a lot with that. Moreover identifying fake vaccination cards could help protect the uninfected in situation or events where vaccine verification is needed
I have experience making a web application work with a database so I could provide information to ensure our application is built under the right technical conditions and with the appropriate technology. Moreover, I currently work remotely as an intern for this company, where we work on a huge web application; fixing bugs, beatifying the user interface and organizing data structures. So I think the skills I picked up could be of some help.
ywu228
Project Abstract
This is a contact tracing app with the ability to authenticate vaccination cards. The app will use a persons mobile device and complete it's objective through the use of that devices GPS, bluetooth and camera sensors. Full anonymity will be kept since the UUID's you've come into contact with never leave your device.
High Level Requirement
Using Bluetooth and GPS we can keep track of how many other app users someone has come into contact with. A user's device will store a list of UUIDs generated from each device's mac address. If an app user reports to the server that they have tested positive for covid, then a message with that user's UUID is sent to the server. Then the server will send a message to all app users with that UUID for the app to compare with the list of contacted UUIDs in the last 14 days. In addition I would like to add on a validating features for vaccine cards. The feature will either require a picture of the card or have the information entered manually. That information will be compared with vaccine lot numbers and expiration dates from the CDC.
Conceptual Design
I already have a fully functioning app that does the contact tracing and UUID Generation. I would like to convert that from an android app written in Java to an app written in Kotlin, since Java is likely to be deprecated for android development shortly. The message sending was also something open sourced, so I would like to use firebase or heroku and create the message communication myself. It will likely just be a simple REST API written in whatever language the team is comfortable writing it in. Adding on the feature of verifying vaccine cards will be using something opensource or I can see if the Android API has a built in method for parsing text from photos. If the CDC grants permission we aren't allowed to disperse the information so the validation of vaccination cards will have to be done server side.
Background
Where this differs from current contact tracing apps is the vaccine card validation and the fact it won't be government sponsored. Most of the government sponsored apps aren't sharing information with each other so the ability to contact trace is limited to who's using the same app. The hope is that this single app can be used by everyone with an android device and could be written as an IOS application as well since GPS and Bluetooth are shared technologies between the two platforms. Again I already have a working version of the application when it comes to contact tracing and UUID storing, the backend and validation for vaccination cards would be the features we're adding. We would also work on refactoring the current code base into Kotlin since it's the preferred android language.
Another thing about these government sponsored apps is privacy is often secondary. Some of them are requiring you to register with a State Id or Drivers License number. Some foreign countries link it to their version of a social security. If the information was ever leaked and a few hundred identities were discovered then through contact tracing you can start to link UUID's with actual people.
Required Resources
I don't see us needing more than what's provided free from firebase, heroku or google cloud for the messaging service. This project really depends on our ability for the CDC to approve the request for access to the vaccine NDCs and lot numbers.