Digital Contact Tracing: A Primer
Channel: The Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society
Date: 2020-07-09

Contact tracing is crucial to slowing the spread of COVID-19 – and technology can enhance traditional efforts. In part one of a new video series, Professor Jonathan Zittrain provides a concise primer on digital contact tracing – specifically, contact tracing work that concerns the identification and notification of exposed people. He explains the challenges and how several different technological solutions – particularly, the Bluetooth Low Energy exposure notification service released by Apple and Google (GAEN) – might help, and introduces some of the key considerations pertinent to smartphone-based solutions with respect to efficacy, privacy, public adoption, and public trust.
 
Jonathan Zittrain is a Co-Chair of the Berkman Klein Center’s Digital Pandemic Response Working Group, a group of experts advising decision makers on ethical, legal, and policy questions related to the development and implementation of digital tools and data to combat the pandemic. He is also a professor of law, computer science, and policy at Harvard University and Co-Founder of the Berkman Klein Center for Internet and Society.

Table of Contents:
 
0:14 Definition of Traditional Contact Tracing
2:02 Challenges to Traditional Contact Tracing
2:40 Case Management Tools
3:05 Geolocation Tools
4:19 Exposure Notification Tools (Google-Apple Framework)
7:00 Policy Considerations with Smartphone-Based Solutions
 
Useful Resources:
 
1.) Berkman Klein Center for Internet & Society, Digital Contact Tracing: Perspectives on approaches to COVID-19, (June 25, 2020), https://cyber.harvard.edu/story/2020-06/digital-contact-tracing-perspectives-approaches-covid-19 
2.) Urs Gasser et al., Digital tools against COVID-19: taxonomy, ethical challenges, and navigation aid, The Lancet Digital Health, (June 29, 2020), https://www.thelancet.com/journals/landig/article/PIIS2589-7500(20)30137-0/fulltext 
3.) Maria Barsallo Lynch and Lauren Zabierek, Considerations for Digital Contact Tracing Tools for COVID-19 Mitigation: Recommendations for Stakeholders and Policymakers, (June 2020), https://www.belfercenter.org/publication/considerations-digital-contact-tracing-tools-covid-19-mitigation-recommendations,   
4.) Digital Contact Tracing for Pandemic Response: Ethics and Governance Guidance (Jeffrey Kahn ed. and Johns Hopkins Project on Ethics and Governance of Digital Contact Tracing Technologies ed. 2020) https://muse.jhu.edu/book/75831 
5.) Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Digital Contact Tracing,  (May 26. 2020), https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/php/contact-tracing/contact-tracing-plan/digital-contact-tracing-tools.html 
6.) Draft Documentation on Google-Apple Exposure Notification System, ( https://www.apple.com/covid19/contacttracing/ 
7.) Nancy Ayer Fairbank, Christopher S. Murray, Amy Couture, Jennifer Kline, and Martin Lazzaro, There’s an App for That: Digital Contact Tracing and Its Role in Mitigating a Second Wave, (May 2020), https://cyber.harvard.edu/sites/default/files/2020-05/Contact_Tracing_Report_Final.pdf 
8.) Jonathan Zittrain, “Is Digital Contact Tracing Over Before It Began?,” (June 25, 2020), https://medium.com/berkman-klein-center/is-digital-contact-tracing-over-before-it-began-925c72036ee7 
9.) BKC Policy Practice: Digital Pandemic Response, https://cyber.harvard.edu/programs/bkc-policy-practice-digital-pandemic-response
 
Acknowledgments:
 
Special thanks to former and current BKC staff John Bowers, Adam Nagy, Lydia Rosenberg, and Hilary Ross and to the team at Tank Design.