BlueTrace: A privacy-preserving protocol for community-driven contact tracing across borders

Posted on May 18, 2020 By Shawn Douglas Journal articles

This April 2020 whitepaper authored by Bay et al. of Singapore's Government Technology Agency presents BlueTrace, a privacy-preserving protocol that underpins Singapore's nationally deployed Bluetooth-based contact tracing system TraceTogether. The white paper describes the purpose of BlueTrace as addressing the key limitation of manual contact tracing: "an infected person can only report contacts they are acquainted with and remember having met." They describe the protocol's design considerations and implementation challenges, as well as how it meets interoperability requirements of health authorities considering its use. Finally they address potential security concerns surrounding the tech. They conclude that while not a stand-alone solution to solving contract tracing issues during a pandemic, Bluetooth-based automated tracing instances can still "ultimately coexist and support the pandemic response plans and processes of the public health authorities guiding us through" a pandemic. The authors also make available OpenTrace, an open-source reference implementation of BlueTrace, on GitHub.

Strengthening public health surveillance through blockchain technology

Posted on May 12, 2020 By Shawn Douglas Journal articles

In this 2019 paper published in AIMS Public Health, Bhattacharya et al. argue for the benefits of using blockchain technology in public health surveillance. Noting the transparency and trust aspects of the technology, as well as the benefits of " data security and privacy, cost-effectiveness, and verifiability of data," the authors discuss four primary ways blockchain can be applied to healthcare activities, including community disease surveillance. "Blockchain could help independent organizations to manage data more efficiently during pandemics," they note, particularly in unison with machine learning and AI techniques. They conclude that blockchain-based disease surveillance "can be more effective and rapid than traditional surveillance in terms of coverage, durability, consensus, selective privacy, uniqueness, and timing."

Health care and cybersecurity: Bibliometric analysis of the literature

Posted on May 5, 2020 By Shawn Douglas Journal articles

Cybersecurity remains a vital consideration for entities within the healthcare setting, with academic researchers publishing on the topic frequently. But since computer security in healthcare first started getting researched in the mid-1980s, how have topical focuses shifted? What areas, if any, are underserved by current research? Jalali et al. attempt to answer those and other questions in this 2019 paper published in Journal of Medical Internet Research. Using bibliometric analysis as their tool, the authors conducted chronological analysis, domain clustering analysis, and text analysis on 472 English-language articles ranging from 1985 to September 2017. The conclude that "[d]espite the increase in research and attention to cybersecurity, there are persistent shortcomings in the research on cybersecurity," including implications that emerging cyber threats, physical security methodologies, and several human elements of cybersecurity have not been sufficiently captured in research. They worry that "a school of thought that knowledge, especially specific strategies and tactics, should not be shared openly," further suppresses research growth and utility.