Covid-19 crisis Contact tracing using an app
I downloaded the TraceTogether developed by GovTech. I used it for a day. I gave up and deleted the app.

I do not like the approach. It consumed too much battery by running Bluetooth to scan for nearby mobile phones. It did not provide any feedback to me on whether there were any data that were captured. 

I saw an article about other initiatives that are being tried in other countries. This article explains some of these projects.

I find an approach, being developed by an Massachusett Institute of Technology in America, called Safe Paths, to have the most promise. Their approach is described in the website.

It works as follow:

a) A user run an app in its mobile phone and record the GPS location of the places that it has visited.
b) It checks against a website to show the locations of infected persons including the time they were there.
c) It highlights any matches and alerts the user of potential contacts with the infected persons.

I find this approach to be most practical. The user keeps its own data in its mobile phone. 

The data of infected persons (showing their GPS location and time) are uploaded into the website for other people to check. The uploaded data are kept anonymous. 

For this approach to work, it is necessary that the infected persons had the app that record their data.

Tan Kin Lian

Vote - will you run an app that works like Safe Paths in Singapore?

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