Regarding current Covid-19 issue, this is a proposition for a smartphone infection alert system based on social interaction.
Humans are social creatures :
- They have family and friends they care about
- They like to gather : meetings, parties, strikes, ...
- They are always on the move and cross many social places : a bus, a bench in a park, a shop, ...
Covid-19 uses those 3 vectors (loved ones, gatherings and social places) to spread all around the world. It particularly likes intense interactions : unprotected coughing, kisses, ... It so sneaky that humans may spread it without showing any symptoms (social interaction history might help with this)
The idea behind this system is to record all those interactions with a human own smartphone. If someone reports being sick, the system will then spread the alert.
For social place recording, tap two times to say you enter a social place and tap three times when you leave this place.
To remember your loved ones you met, shake you phone twice vertically towards him or her (as if you were knocking on a door) and she/he does the same towards you. If the app does not have the contact yet, it suggests you exchange contact information (so in case one of you is sick you can send a personal private message to tell the other).
At the beginning of a meeting or social gathering, all "party animals" can point their phone towards the center of the group while shaking it (as if you were opening a door knob many times). The members app will then record the gathering beginning. Same when it ends but point the phone towards the sky when you finish the shaking.
If you had an intense interaction, tap 4 times on the smartphone so the app records it.
Once someone reports being sick, the system will spread the alert.
- System communication between smartphone apps can be based on the onion router principle.
- Social places can be consolidated through app communication. Public places can be open data and corporate ones can be through a company server
- A recording can be done according to user preferences : optimistic (use whatever active sensor [wifi, bluetooth scan, gps] to help to make a digital footprint of the place) or activate the authorised ones for as long as the digital footprint snapshot is required.