Contact: NIST-workshop-pandemic-technologies@nist.gov

NIST Workshop: Challenges for Digital 

Proximity Detection in Pandemics: Privacy, 

Accuracy, and Impact

26-28 January 2021 | 10:00 AM – 3:30 PM EDT

Free, virtual event via BlueJeans | Registration required, limited to 400 attendees

Background: In the last nine months the world has 

seen the emergence of information technologies 

designed to provide portable proximity detection for the 

purpose of limiting the spread of respiratory infectious 

diseases. These technologies include wearables that 

provide alerts when social distance is not maintained, 

applications that enable coordination with public health 

officials to provide exposure notification and/or augment 

manual contact tracing, and the use of encounter 

metrics to inform space occupancy limits and 

environmental controls management. Efforts to address 

questions about effectiveness and privacy are taking 

place within non-profit organizations, academia, 

commercial entities, public health and government.

Objective: Provide a forum to discuss successes and 

challenges associated with implementation of proximity 

detection technologies and identify areas in which 

additional effort is required. These areas could be, but 

are not limited to, privacy, testbeds, machine learning,, 

modelling, new technologies, data and standards, 

commercialization, and validation and verification.

Format: The first day features speakers on different 

aspects of proximity detection and the existing 

challenges. The second day features a panel 

discussion and facilitated break-out sessions that 

provide opportunity for community engagement on 

ways to overcome the challenges presented in the 

first day. The final day features a reports from the 

break-out session and a wrap-up discussion.

Output: The invited speakers and panel discussion will 

be recorded and released along with a written report.

TOPICS:

Challenges – When implemented, how well 

and in what situations will the technology

reduce the spread of infectious disease? How 

can we predict the impact? What more do we 

need to know to improve models?

Privacy – How are privacy risks generated by 

these technologies being managed? How can 

privacy gains or losses be understood with 

different implementations?

Effectiveness – How accurate are various 

proximity detection technologies? What data 

are needed to determine accuracy? What are 

the considerations for platforms and ranging 

technologies (e.g. smartphones, wearables, 

Bluetooth RSSI, ultrasonic ranging, etc.)?

Looking Toward the Future – What are the 

longer-term applications and directions that 

should be developed? What are community 

needs? What is the role of government? What 

are challenges for commercialization?

PARTICIPATE:

We invite the community of stakeholders to 

participate in the workshop by sharing their 

views on this rapidly developing discipline.

Register: Please visit our website at 

Challenges for Digital Proximity Detection in 

Pandemics: Privacy, Accuracy, and Impact to 

register.

Submit an Abstract: NIST welcomes the 

submission of 1-page technical abstracts for 10-

minute oral presentations. Please email 

abstracts to NIST-workshop-pandemictechnologies@nist.gov by 12 PM ET, Jan. 4, 

2021, including presenter first and last name, 

affiliation, contact email address, and title.