Encounter - cross-platform contact tracing

Encounter is a free, open-source, cross-platform (Android & iPhone) application that allows automated, private and secure contact tracing without servers or infrastructure deployment requirements. Encounter is an automated, privacy-aware, non-siloed co-presence contact tracing logging tool that could be useful to tackle the spread of this and future virus outbreaks.

Features:

* Automatically updated worldwide to reflect the rate of infection and whether measures are working to reduce it. The data comes directly from John Hopkins JHU CSSE.

* On-demand data export for analysis, or to share it with authorities and health officials.

* Full control of when and with whom the data is shared.

* Using Bluetooth, WiFi, and ultrasound, we log on your phone every minute all surrounding Encounter UUIDs. Combined, we can determine with a high degree of confidence if two of more people were in close proximity, without necessarily knowing where anyone is, every minute, with minimal battery impact.

* The Encounter apps store the data only locally on your device. There are no servers or infrastructure requirements to scale the usage of the app. Encounter can be used by any country and any individual with an Android or iPhone. The data can be collected indefinitely, as long as there is internal storage space on your smartphone.

To protect users' privacy:

- Daily rotation of UUIDs

- New UUID is assigned if the data is deleted

- New UUID if the data is exported

We built Encounter to empower individual actions to get ahead of the virus and break the chain of transmission. The contact tracing data is stored in a format that is readable by many tools. We chose a compact schema to minimize the file size for sharing. The data is recorded the same way, regardless of the country where the data originated. In the case of the device changes timezone, the readable format contains the currently active time as it was experienced by the user.

This work has been a collaborative effort from:

- University of Oulu - Center for Ubiquitous Computing - UBICOMP-CIA

- The University of Tokyo

- University of Helsinki

- Tel-Aviv University