TraceTogether - an overview

Since the launch of TraceTogether on 20 Mar 2020, we have received many suggestions and requests for the app to be shared with other countries and organisations. We were unprepared for the overwhelming level of interest. We apologise for not being more responsive to those who have reached out, but rest assured that we are trying our best.

The COVID-19 pandemic is a global problem that knows no boundaries. We recognise that a Bluetooth contact tracing app like TraceTogether can be helpful in other countries. However, the biggest and most important caveat is that we are still in the very early stages of using TraceTogether to help with Singapore’s contact tracing operations, and it is too early to tell how effective TraceTogether actually is. Nonetheless, we have decided to open source the app and the underlying BlueTrace protocol in the hope that it could be useful, so that the global software development community can collectively improve it, and so that governments and public health authorities may adapt it.

Besides the actual source code and technical documentation, we think it is useful to explain in greater detail how the app works, the situations in which it can potentially improve contact tracing, and some of the limitations which you should be aware of.

This document is written primarily for government leaders and policymakers, but it should be helpful to app development teams as well. In particular, it is meant to help leaders decide whether a contact tracing app like TraceTogether would be useful in your operating context, as well as the potential modifications to Singapore’s implementation that be needed.

Contact Tracing in Singapore

TraceTogether was designed from the ground-up to support Singapore’s contact tracing process, with the close involvement of the national public health authority from the very beginning. Its design is informed by two considerations: a) centralised contact tracing operations; and b) decentralised activity recall.

  • Centralised contact tracing operations. When a person is diagnosed with COVID-19, he/she will be contacted by the Government’s contact tracing team under the charge of the Ministry of Health. All contact tracing operations are centralised in this team.
  • Decentralised recall. The contact tracer will ask the person to recall all the places he/she has been to in the last 14 days, as well as the persons they have been contact with. This activity mapping process is tedious but necessary, in order to identify all the close contacts whom they may have exposed the SARS-CoV-2 virus to, as well as identify close contacts they may have caught the virus from, so as to establish links between clusters of COVID-19 cases. To aid the recall, individuals usually refer to their schedules, social media history, etc. However, what is usually impossible to know, is close contact with unacquainted contacts, such as at restaurants, large social/work events, or even on public transport. TraceTogether and other Bluetooth-based contact/proximity tracing solutions attempt to plug this gap, by recording who you have been in contact with, but not where.

How TraceTogether works

In Singapore, downloading the app is voluntary (more on app adoption in a later section). The high-level overview of how the app works is that you register using a mobile number. Thereafter, the app will keep a record of other TraceTogether users you have been in close proximity with, and stores all the information on the phone with scrambled identifiers to protect the identity of users. Only when approached by a contact tracer will a user be requested to upload his/her data stored on the phone to a central server owned by the Ministry of Health to facilitate contact tracing.

  • Minimal personal data is collected. When the app is installed, users will be asked to register using a Singapore mobile number. This mobile number is the only personal data that the Ministry of Health will collect from the user, and it is stored in a secured server together with a random anonymised User ID that is linked to one’s mobile number. The security level of this server is as high as other Government servers that store official information. The mobile number is what allows individuals to be contacted, so that he may receive the appropriate guidance and care.
  • No access to location data. TraceTogether does not have access to nor does it require location data.
  • A user’s identity is never revealed to other users. The app creates a temporary ID, generated by encrypting the User ID so that only the Ministry of Health can decrypt it. The temporary ID is changed frequently, making it difficult to spoof. When the app is running, it regularly scans for nearby TraceTogether users using Bluetooth. When it is able to establish a Bluetooth connection with such nearby users, using what we call the BlueTrace protocol, the app will record the temporary ID of the nearby phone, together with information about the phone’s model, Bluetooth signal strength, and time. The phone therefore never records any personal identifiable information. Furthermore, all this information is stored on the phone, andis never uploaded to the Ministry of Health or shared with anyone else, unless explicitly authorised and initiated by the user.
  • Records will only be uploaded during contact tracing. In the event a TraceTogether user is contacted by the contact tracer, he/she will be asked to upload the proximity history stored in the TraceTogether app to the Ministry of Health. We have put in place an authentication mechanism to ensure that only a genuine contact tracer can request a user to upload his/her data (see below screenshots).
  • TraceTogether records will facilitate, but not replace, contact tracing. When TraceTogether records are received by the contact tracing team, they will be able to view the phone numbers of probable close contacts. Once the contact tracers have the list of probable contacts, they would have to cold call these persons. (Users agree during onboarding to be contacted by contact tracers if they have been exposed to SARS-CoV-2.) Since the contact tracers only know the mobile number, and not the name or how/where the person could have come into contact with a COVID-19 case, the communications protocol is designed such that the contact tracer must exercise judgment to account for systematic biases, e.g. short-duration contact in an unventilated space or phones not actively carried by owners, in deciding on the necessary follow-up.

It is useful at this point to describe in a bit more detail, but without being too technical, how information recorded by TraceTogether can identify probable close contacts. The two key determinants of what constitutes a probable “close contact” are distance between contacts, and duration of contact. The definition of what constitutes a “close contact” will likely differ from country to country, or change as we learn more about the epidemiology of SARS-CoV-2. As alluded to above, it is also sensitive to context and factors other than just distance and duration that are beyond the ability of a Bluetooth contact tracing app to account for.

  • Distance between contacts. To estimate the distance between two TraceTogether users, we measure the Bluetooth signal strength between their devices. Bluetooth transmission power characteristics differ from device to device. Hence, to improve the accuracy of distance estimation, TraceTogether’s data analysis is calibrated using measurements for the most popular mobile handsets in the Singapore market. [In Singapore, approximately half of smart phones are iPhones, and half are Android, from a variety of manufacturers.] For greater accuracy, if a similar app is implemented in other countries, such testing should also be conducted. We provide a baseline dataset that we invite developers and handset manufacturers to contribute to, to serve as a universal calibration table for any Bluetooth contact tracing app.
  • Duration of contact. In order to establish duration of contact, TraceTogether tries to scan for nearby Bluetooth devices in the background, to find other TraceTogether users, at regular intervals. However, this does not happen when the user switches off Bluetooth, or due to the inherent constraints on the iOS version of the app (elaborated later). Assuming the app is able to scan at regular intervals, we can then establish a relatively accurate estimate of the duration of contact.

Besides the client app, there also needs to be a data analysis dashboard meant for contact tracers, to make it as easy as possible to retrieve each set of uploaded proximity history, and to flag probable close contacts for follow-up. This front-end will likely need to be integrated into the existing workflows of the contact tracers, and will therefore differ from country to country. We have found it extremely useful to have a continuing dialogue and collaboration between the development team and contact tracing team. By articulating the user journeys of the contact tracers and healthcare professionals on the frontline, we can continue to rapidly prototype and iterate the contract tracing data analysis dashboard.

Prerequisites and Limitations

There are two key prerequisites for TraceTogether to be useful to contact tracing. First, a large-enough proportion of the population must download the app. Second, due to the design of Apple’s iOS, iPhone users must actively keep their app running in the foreground. These two prerequisites can also be treated as limitations which need to be overcome, and the non-technical solutions would likely differ from country to country.

  • High app adoption. TraceTogether users can only detect other TraceTogether users. We have designed it this way, so that everyone who is being recorded as a contact had consented to doing so. This preserves high social trust in the use of the app, as an act of social responsibility by individuals. The success of the app therefore depends significantly on enough people using the app, otherwise the chance of contact between individuals both having the app will be low. In Singapore, where the use of the app is voluntary, we encouraged app downloads under the ambit of SGUnited, the community campaign launched to help Singapore overcome COVID-19 as one people.
    Apart from general media and social media publicity, the Singapore Government also worked with organised groups, e.g. large employers and unions, to encourage their members to download and use the app. There were many public and private organisations that came on board voluntarily, after seeing how useful it will be for their staff, and the wellbeing of the general population. After slightly more than two weeks after TraceTogether was launched, we crossed a million users. While this is promising, this is still less than a quarter of the population, and we will continue with the publicity and outreach efforts.
  • Active usage of TraceTogether. For Android users, TraceTogether is able to regularly scan for nearby Bluetooth devices, even when the app is running in the background. However, for iOS users, TraceTogether needs to be kept running in the foreground in order to be able to reliably scan for nearby devices. This is obviously a major hurdle to usage as users are unlikely to keep the app running all, or even most, of the time. We have therefore introduced nudges such as occasional push notifications to remind iOS users to keep their app running, especially in more crowded places like public transport. We have also publicised this limitation clearly on our website and in public communications. We will continue to explore technical workarounds.
  • Apple and Google app review policies. App developers should be aware of Apple’s and Google’s policies on the review of apps related to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. Apple will only accept apps from “recognized entities such as government organisations, health-focused NGOs, companies deeply credentialed in health issues, and medical or educational institutions”. Google will only accept apps “published, commissioned or authorized by official government entities and public health organisations”.

Global Interoperability via BlueTrace Protocol

Having each country develop its own version of TraceTogether will help with local contact tracing. When international travel resumes, and if the spread of COVID-19 has not fully subsided, there may be a need for cross-border contact tracing. We have therefore designed the BlueTrace protocol with global interoperability in mind. Each country or even state/city-level implementation of BlueTrace can specify its unique country and sub-country code. This means that BlueTrace-compatible apps (e.g. TraceTogether) will be able to record contacts with users of another BlueTrace-compatible app, and governments can work together to design a mutual assistance process for contact tracing.

Achieving this global interoperability will obviously require a lot more discussions and collaboration, and with this in mind, Singapore hopes to start a BlueTrace coalition with like-minded national and sub-national partners to get the work started. Our vision is for the BlueTrace coalition to eventually become a self-sustaining global community that can maintain and improve the BlueTrace protocol, and provide a global public good. More information on the BlueTrace protocol and coalition can be found at https://bluetrace.io.

We hope that this document is a useful starting point, and if you have feedback or further queries, please submit them via the BlueTrace website.

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Team TraceTogether

9 Apr 2020