[Cryptography] Polish govt open-sources an app for fighting the coronavirus by saving the history of encountered devices

[Nabil Alsharif]

On 4/3/20 11:32 AM, Aleksander Korzyński wrote:
> Data is sent to the server only when the user of the application has
> been tested positive for coronavirus. In this case, the health
> authority instructs the patient how to send data from the phone to the
> server.
> The data is sent to the server where the health authority personel,
> based on their analysis (length, frequency, proximity in accordance
> with WHO standards), decides which people should be subject to home
> quarantine.
Thankfully they are not just vacuuming up all the data and giving the
user some control over when and if the data is sent. That second
sentence though made me wonder how the Health Authorities would identify
which people to quarantine and how to contact them? We can speculate all
day about potential solutions, but I would wonder if the devices collect
enough information for the user to positively identify someone they were
standing next to in the grocery line.

Nabil.