Tracy: Smartphone-based Contact Tracing Solution that Supports Self-investigation to Limit the Spread of COVID-19

The unprecedented spread of COVID-19 pandemic has become the main challenge for several countries around the world. One of the crucial measures taken to control and manage the diffusion of COVID-19 pandemic is contact tracing. The approach is based on tracing and identifying people who have been exposed to an infected individual to prevent onward transmission by alerting those who came in contact with the positive case; thus, isolation measures and suitable precautions can be taken. By using the communication and localization technologies embedded on the smartphones, those who made contact can be effectively traced by continuously collecting the timestamped locations and contacts of the owners. In this paper, an innovative privacy preserving smartphone-based contact tracing solution named ‘Tracy’ is proposed to help the health facilities to limit and control the spread of COVID-19 especially with the upcoming second wave of the virus. The proposed system consists of three main components: an intelligent application installed on smartphones, a data processing platform, and a website on which the different functions of those parts are integrated to provide the required services for the contact tracing solution. The system is designed to allow individuals to investigate the possibility of them contacting a person infected with the emerging coronavirus. A novel algorithm is designed to determine the effective location points in the individual's routes in which possible contacts can happen and based on these effective points, the prior contacts are decided. The system is also designed to provide an effective communication method with the local health facilities to receive medical advice and precautionary measures required for those who have discovered the possibility of contact with COVID-19. The reliability and scalability of the proposed solution is recognized by the usage of effective contact location points to determine the point of contact with the infected rather than using all the points of the individual's route.