Communities need a reliable method to track COVID-19 infections and slow the spread of the virus now affecting populations worldwide.
One option is contact tracing, a method for monitoring who has come in contact with whom, and, when appropriate, alerting a network of people if someone nearby has been diagnosed with the virus. Mobile phone apps offer opportunities to improve the accuracy of contact tracing but they come with privacy red flags 鈥� for example leaking a user鈥檚 location information or taking away people鈥檚 control over their own data.
This fall the 91探花鈥檚 annual engineering lecture will feature , an associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. Tessaro, whose research centers on cryptography, computer security and privacy, will discuss the benefits and drawbacks of contact tracing, its widespread use, and digital contact tracing methods being developed at the 91探花and Microsoft Research to protect the privacy of individuals.
Tessaro’s talk will be Wednesday, Oct. 21, at 5 p.m. This lecture is free and open to the public, but .
Updated 10/27/20 鈥� video