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Blockchain-Based Digital Contact Tracing Apps for COVID-19 Pandemic Management: Issues, Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions

The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial global disturbance by affecting more than 42 million people (as of the end of October 2020). Since there is no medication or vaccine available, the only way to combat it is to minimize transmission. Digital contact tracing is an effective technique that c...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Idrees, Sheikh Mohammad, Nowostawski, Mariusz, Jameel, Roshan
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: JMIR Publications 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7875568/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33400677
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25245
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author Idrees, Sheikh Mohammad
Nowostawski, Mariusz
Jameel, Roshan
author_facet Idrees, Sheikh Mohammad
Nowostawski, Mariusz
Jameel, Roshan
author_sort Idrees, Sheikh Mohammad
collection PubMed
description The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial global disturbance by affecting more than 42 million people (as of the end of October 2020). Since there is no medication or vaccine available, the only way to combat it is to minimize transmission. Digital contact tracing is an effective technique that can be utilized for this purpose, as it eliminates the manual contact tracing process and could help in identifying and isolating affected people. However, users are reluctant to share their location and contact details due to concerns related to the privacy and security of their personal information, which affects its implementation and extensive adoption. Blockchain technology has been applied in various domains and has been proven to be an effective approach for handling data transactions securely, which makes it an ideal choice for digital contact tracing apps. The properties of blockchain such as time stamping and immutability of data may facilitate the retrieval of accurate information on the trail of the virus in a transparent manner, while data encryption assures the integrity of the information being provided. Furthermore, the anonymity of the user’s identity alleviates some of the risks related to privacy and confidentiality concerns. In this paper, we provide readers with a detailed discussion on the digital contact tracing mechanism and outline the apps developed so far to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, we present the possible risks, issues, and challenges associated with the available contact tracing apps and analyze how the adoption of a blockchain-based decentralized network for handling the app could provide users with privacy-preserving contact tracing without compromising performance and efficiency.
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spelling pubmed-78755682021-02-22 Blockchain-Based Digital Contact Tracing Apps for COVID-19 Pandemic Management: Issues, Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions Idrees, Sheikh Mohammad Nowostawski, Mariusz Jameel, Roshan JMIR Med Inform Viewpoint The COVID-19 pandemic has caused substantial global disturbance by affecting more than 42 million people (as of the end of October 2020). Since there is no medication or vaccine available, the only way to combat it is to minimize transmission. Digital contact tracing is an effective technique that can be utilized for this purpose, as it eliminates the manual contact tracing process and could help in identifying and isolating affected people. However, users are reluctant to share their location and contact details due to concerns related to the privacy and security of their personal information, which affects its implementation and extensive adoption. Blockchain technology has been applied in various domains and has been proven to be an effective approach for handling data transactions securely, which makes it an ideal choice for digital contact tracing apps. The properties of blockchain such as time stamping and immutability of data may facilitate the retrieval of accurate information on the trail of the virus in a transparent manner, while data encryption assures the integrity of the information being provided. Furthermore, the anonymity of the user’s identity alleviates some of the risks related to privacy and confidentiality concerns. In this paper, we provide readers with a detailed discussion on the digital contact tracing mechanism and outline the apps developed so far to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Moreover, we present the possible risks, issues, and challenges associated with the available contact tracing apps and analyze how the adoption of a blockchain-based decentralized network for handling the app could provide users with privacy-preserving contact tracing without compromising performance and efficiency. JMIR Publications 2021-02-09 /pmc/articles/PMC7875568/ /pubmed/33400677 http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25245 Text en ©Sheikh Mohammad Idrees, Mariusz Nowostawski, Roshan Jameel. Originally published in JMIR Medical Informatics (http://medinform.jmir.org), 09.02.2021. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work, first published in JMIR Medical Informatics, is properly cited. The complete bibliographic information, a link to the original publication on http://medinform.jmir.org/, as well as this copyright and license information must be included.
spellingShingle Viewpoint
Idrees, Sheikh Mohammad
Nowostawski, Mariusz
Jameel, Roshan
Blockchain-Based Digital Contact Tracing Apps for COVID-19 Pandemic Management: Issues, Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions
title Blockchain-Based Digital Contact Tracing Apps for COVID-19 Pandemic Management: Issues, Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions
title_full Blockchain-Based Digital Contact Tracing Apps for COVID-19 Pandemic Management: Issues, Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions
title_fullStr Blockchain-Based Digital Contact Tracing Apps for COVID-19 Pandemic Management: Issues, Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions
title_full_unstemmed Blockchain-Based Digital Contact Tracing Apps for COVID-19 Pandemic Management: Issues, Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions
title_short Blockchain-Based Digital Contact Tracing Apps for COVID-19 Pandemic Management: Issues, Challenges, Solutions, and Future Directions
title_sort blockchain-based digital contact tracing apps for covid-19 pandemic management: issues, challenges, solutions, and future directions
topic Viewpoint
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7875568/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/33400677
http://dx.doi.org/10.2196/25245
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