Corona Heatmap
Software solution for pricacy-perserving health data analytics
The CoronaHeatmap shows where Corona patients were when they got infected. This heat map can help to determine hotspots for infections with SARS-CoV-2. Our solution is designed to protect the privacy of every Austrian citizen through state-of-the-art encryption technology.
Please note: We only used simulated data for the development of this technology - i.e., the images are just exemplary.
Motivation
An essential factor in the fight against Corona is the knowledge of the places where people get most likely infected. This insight helps the officials to take specific and effective measures.
The health authority posses a list of Sars-Cov-2 patients and corresponding mobile phone numbers. It sends them to a mobile network provider. The mobile network provider responds with the location data of those mobile phone numbers. Due to the requested location data, the health authority can detect the places where most of the Sars-Cov-2 got infected.
Problems
Two data sets are needed. First, the mobile numbers of the Corona patients, which are in posession of the health authority. Second, the location data, which are in posession of the mobile carrier.
Through the request from the health authority, the mobile network operator gets to know the identity of Sars-Cov-2 patients. On the other side, the health authority learns the movement patterns of individual persons.
Data-Privacy is not guaranteed, because
the location data of the patients are leaked and
individual surveillance is made possible.
Solution
Guaranteed data protection through encryption: Instead of hoping that nobody misuses the data, we rely on mathematical security. Our solution to protect personal data is twofold:
Location data is aggregated to prevent the tracking of individual persons.
The data of patients are protected with state-of-the-art encryption, called homomorphic encryption. Homomorphic Encryption enables us for the first time to compute on encrypted data without decrypting it.
