Download this MIT application to become listed on efforts to trace the coronavirus route map in your area

The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) Media Lab has developed an iphone app that tracks the positioning data of users and shares it with other users-without violating their privacy-in an effort to inform people if indeed they have come into contact with someone infected with the coronavirus.

The app is determined by users voluntarily declaring if indeed they have tested positive for the coronavirus disease COVID-19. By sharing location data with others on the network, users can check if they have crossed paths with infected persons. But be confident that users will not be in a position to access data of who another user is. The encrypted location data is shared anonymously.

The Private Kit: Safe Paths software is comparable in intention to Singapore’s TraceTogether iphone app which is also found in contact tracing, which Deccan Chronicle had reported a few days ago.

Where it differs is that the MIT application shares encrypted location data between users without it being accessed by a nodal authority, whereas the Singapore government’s application sends Bluetooth signals between phones within close proximity of 2 metres to discover other users of the app.

The free and open-source prototype Private Kit software originated by teams at MIT and Harvard and also software engineers of Facebook and Uber who done it in their leisure time. It is designed for download on Apple’s App Store and Google’s Play Store.

Ramesh Raskar of MIT Media lab, who heads the team that developed the app, was quoted as saying by MIT technology review that only when enough people are using it will the app have any meaningful data to share.

However, he said a “fine-grained tracking approach” allows authorities to seal off and disinfect areas on the route map of infected persons. Giving the exemplory case of South Korea, where contact tracing of infected folks identified coronavirus hotspots, Raskar said testing stations were create outside buildings that had been visited by carriers of the virus.

Cautioning users against feeling a false sense of security about some places being safe while some unsafe, he pointed out that the app can only pinpoint locations that the virus has been rather than where it is going.

On using the app, several persons have given ideas and pointed out glitches to the MIT team, on App store and Play store, to that your response appears quick. So, download the app and give it a chance. You would be doing your bit to remain and others safe.