COVID-19 quarantine could be tracked with a simple Bluetooth technology

In continue of our Bluetooth and Beacon articles we could give another more fresh example how this technology could be used for another kind of goals like tracking and geofencing of people under quarantine.

At the beginning of April 2020 Singapore announced for applying the strictest measures against the Coronavirus in the world. This news rolled out around the globe and now one month later – various countries are start applying the same strategies and measures in order to prevent Coronavirus spread.

Part of those measures was known as people tracking under quarantine as part of geofencing strategy. This strategy is using mobile applications that are capable to track the current location and being able to use the Bluetooth of the current device when the GPS signal is weak and not enough to get the exact location. At this point the Bluetooth Beacon technology comes to help. In general, every Bluetooth device is capable to advertise its presence to surrounding neighbor devices that have installed and running the same application. This is enough each neighbor device (and application) to acknowledge the presence, save and transmit this event to the server where postprocessing is made. At later stage when some owner is classified as a sick with a COVID-19 infection the authorities may trace all contacted devices and their owners respectively and take an appropriate action.

This is great from one point of the view and it demonstrates how one well known technology as the Bluetooth could be used for various goals, but “With great power comes great responsibility” and the Privacy must be considered very well in order to prevent and avoid any potential abuse with the data. On the other side it demonstrates how one simple solution could help in preventing the spread of the Coronavirus and being in great help to the entire society.

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Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

In continue of our Bluetooth and Beacon articles we could give another more fresh example how this technology could be used for another kind of goals like tracking and geofencing of people under quarantine.

At the beginning of April 2020 Singapore announced for applying the strictest measures against the Coronavirus in the world. This news rolled out around the globe and now one month later – various countries are start applying the same strategies and measures in order to prevent Coronavirus spread.

Part of those measures was known as people tracking under quarantine as part of geofencing strategy. This strategy is using mobile applications that are capable to track the current location and being able to use the Bluetooth of the current device when the GPS signal is weak and not enough to get the exact location. At this point the Bluetooth Beacon technology comes to help. In general, every Bluetooth device is capable to advertise its presence to surrounding neighbor devices that have installed and running the same application. This is enough each neighbor device (and application) to acknowledge the presence, save and transmit this event to the server where postprocessing is made. At later stage when some owner is classified as a sick with a COVID-19 infection the authorities may trace all contacted devices and their owners respectively and take an appropriate action.

This is great from one point of the view and it demonstrates how one well known technology as the Bluetooth could be used for various goals, but “With great power comes great responsibility” and the Privacy must be considered very well in order to prevent and avoid any potential abuse with the data. On the other side it demonstrates how one simple solution could help in preventing the spread of the Coronavirus and being in great help to the entire society.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *