Use of Participatory Apps in Contact Tracing: Options and Implications for Public Health, Privacy and Trust [Report]

Mobile apps can be used to involve citizens as co-actors in public health efforts during infectious disease outbreaks. In May 2020, the Digital Health and Care Institute commissioned four Scottish experts to prepare an advisory report to inform an approach to contact tracing apps for Scotland that is secure, transparent, participatory and privacy-respectful. The report collates expert answers to the following questions: • What are the desirable outcomes arising from the automation of symptom and contact tracing data collection at scale? (Prof Jill Pell, Institute of Health and Wellbeing, University of Glasgow); • How might the distributed system be architected to be secure and respectful of privacy from the outset? (Prof Bill Buchanan, OBE, School of Computing, University of Napier); • What communications standards and methods would best support the approach? (Prof Muhammad Imran, James Watt School of Engineering, University of Glasgow); • What are the ethical challenges and what steps should Scottish Government take to secure public trust? (Prof Claudia Pagliari, Usher Institute, University of Edinburgh)