We present an end to end decentralized protocol developed by MIT for the secure and privacy preserving workflow of phased vaccination, vaccination status verification, and adverse reactions or symptoms reporting. The proposed system improves the efficiency, privacy, equity and effectiveness by augmenting the existing systems such as VAMS, VAERS, v-safe and IIS.
We propose two user-facing solutions: (i) a modified vaccination card which carries digitally signed (QR) codes and a scanner app for health officials for data aggregation, (ii) a mobile phone app for the user that interfaces with existing databases directly. We believe a user-centric design is critical in the micro-planning and last mile issues.
The user’s journey is divided into four parts: (i) Digitally enhanced enrollment system for phased vaccination, (ii) A privacy-preserving smartphone app to interface with vaccination sites without revealing any personally identifiable information to centralized servers, (iii) Proof of vaccination in a privacy-preserving and secure manner, (iv) Monitoring and alert systems for adverse reactions that enable users to upload their symptoms in a cryptographically secure manner. In addition, we need the ability to perform data aggregation for analytics without revealing raw data.
This repository is a compilation of Trusted Pandemic Technologies' efforts to design digital solutions that engage citizens in four core areas — Logistics, Health Outcomes, User-centric impact, and Communication.
Our mission is to help public health professionals to instantly overcome challenging barriers they encounter as they engage citizens as an active participants in digital solutions for fighting COVID-19 and future pandemics.
Today, the program is focused on creating a citizen-centric solutions for the digital management of COVID-19 vaccine distribution, testing, and health verification. Previously the program worked with public health officials as they designed and deployed exposure notification and digital contact tracing solutions. Subsequent initiatives under consideration include surveillance, monitoring, and predictive modeling to better prepare us, as a society, for future pandemics.
The founding belief of the Trusted Pandemic Technologies is that when it comes to engaging citizens in a quest for the common good, especially public health, trust at all levels and among all participants is mandatory for success. So, the program builds on privacy-preserving systems for smartphone data, analytics, and machine learning.
- VaccineDiary Mobile App
- VaccineDiary Demo Video
- Scanner App Video
- News and Analysis
- Team
- Papers
- Team Background
- Events
- Vaccination Record Card Proposals
- App Sketches
- Apps and Prototypes
- Conceptual Dashboard for Health Agencies
- Vaccine Workflows
- FAQ
Vaccines for All Conference at MIT - Pandemic.mit.edu
Slides - MIT, IDEO, PathCheck, CCI, VCI
Slides - PaperCreds
MiSaCa + Boost-19 + Scanner App Video
Boost19 App For Us All, by Vitor Pamplona at Conference on "Vaccines for All" at MIT
QR code generator - https://github.com/Path-Check/healthpassport-reader-app
Live demo of QR code for Coupon, Badge, Status and Passkey
Privacy, equity, and efficiency in vaccine distribution - Boston Globe by Ramesh Raskar
'When can I schedule a COVID-19 vaccine appointment?' Why the government can't answer this simple question by Hana Schank and Ramesh Raskar
Paper Cards and Digital Codes Target Vaccination Chaos by Jeremy Hsu
MIT - Ramesh Raskar, Sanjay Sarma, Abhishek Singh
Brown University - Anna Lysyanskaya
Stony Brook Medicine - Joseph Bae
PathCheck - Vitor Pamplona (CEO, EyeNetra INC), Krishnendu Dasgupta, Vinay Gidwaney, Rohan Sukumaran, Rohan Iyer, Priyanshi Katiyar, Sheshank Shankar, Adam Berrey, Anshuman Sharma, Ashley Mehra, Jatin Malhotra (Jio), Sethuraman T V, Darshan Gandhi, Mikhail Dmitrienko, Nathan Yap, Saurish Srivastava, Ishaan Singh, Haris Nazir
Institute for Technology and Global Health - Maurizio Arseni
Stanford University - Riyanka Roy Choudhury
MIT SafePaths Card (MiSaCa): Augmenting Paper Based Vaccination Cards with Printed Codes by Joseph Bae, Rohan Sukumaran, Sheshank Shankar, Saurish Srivastava, Rohan Iyer, Aryan Mahindra, Qamil Mirza, Maurizio Arseni, Anshuman Sharma, Saras Agrawal, Orna Mukhopadhyay, Colin Kang, Priyanshi Katiyar, Apurv Shekhar, Sifat Hasan, Krishnendu Dasgupta, Darshan Gandhi, Sethuraman TV, Parth Patwa, Ishaan Singh, Abhishek Singh, and Ramesh Raskar
Mobile Apps Prioritizing Privacy, Efficiency and Equity: A Decentralized Approach to COVID-19 Vaccination Coordination by Joseph Bae, Rohan Sukumaran, Sheshank Shankar, Anshuman Sharma, Ishaan Singh, Haris Nazir, Colin Kang, Saurish Srivastava, Parth Patwa, Abhishek Singh, Priyanshi Katiyar, Vitor Pamplona, and Ramesh Raskar
Vaccines for All: Challenges and Potential Solutions for Equitable COVID-19 Vaccine Distribution by Joseph Bae, Susan Blumenthal, Jagjit Dhaliwal, Shirley Bergin, Sanjay Sarma, and Ramesh Raskar
Verifiable Proof of Health using Public Key Cryptography by Abhishek Singh and Ramesh Raskar
Safepaths: Vaccine Diary Protocol and Decentralized Vaccine Coordination System using a Privacy Preserving User Centric Experience by Abhishek Singh, Ramesh Raskar, and Anna Lysyanskaya
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Exposure Notification App, now in 6 US states and territories by PathCheck Foundation
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First white paper on unintended consequences of digital solutions for contact tracing
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Awards for digital pandemic Work and research:
- Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Emergency Response for the Health Care System Innovation Challenge - Second Place
- Facebook COVID-19 Symptom Data Challenge (jointly run by CMU, UMD, and Duke University) - Finalist
- NIST Too Close for Too Long (TC4TL) Challenge first round - 1st Place
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Talk at NIST Challenges for Digital Proximity Detection in Pandemics Event
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Host of convening events for COVID-19 digital solutions (https://pandemic.mit.edu) and (https://responsibledata.ai/events/trust)
- Conference on "Vaccines for All" at MIT [Jan 14, Dec 11]
- Trusted Pandemic Tech at MIT https://pandemic.mit.edu
ProtoPie: interactive prototype of the Vaccine Diary app by Rohan Iyer
A privacy-protecting, user-centric app to enhance vaccination coordination and data-aggregation.
No. Systems such as VAMS/VAERS/V-Safe/IIS/IZ. are important in wide ranging COVID-19 vaccination efforts. Our proposed app would provide an alternative method for vaccination that is privacy-sparing, efficient, and equitable while serving as a supplemental source of vaccine monitoring information.
Vaccine diary, second-dose and health status alert, and informational features of our proposed app would be independent of the existing systems. The input of vaccination information upon administration of a vaccine and side effect/efficacy reports are two areas with potential for integration with government systems. To verify and record the vaccine administration, vaccination clinics or governments would need to provide signed QR codes that can be printed / copied by pharmacies or by users. This QR code would have information regarding the lot, manufacturer, and dosing of a vaccine which can then be verified by others with the appropriate digital key.
For interoperability of symptom/side effect reports, state or federal systems will need to allow the pseudorandom identifier associated with a user to be used for data identification purposes rather than PII such as name, address, etc. This is already part of the PPRL (privacy preserving record linkage) protocol for VAMS and IIS.
Doctors and public health officials can contact users regarding pertinent information about their specific vaccine lot and other important details via app-mediated push notifications and contextual alerts. This is similar to ‘recalls’ in auto-parts, food safety, toys, etc.
The emphasis is on privacy, equity and efficiency. Significant chunks of the population still exhibit vaccine hesitancy and many may be unwilling to receive a COVID-19 vaccine. This app aims to remove potential barriers to vaccination by protecting data privacy, creating a convenient, streamlined user experience, and providing multiple vaccine-related functionalities in one platform. We also believe that decentralized data can be used for a broad range of public health research.
This app does support vaccine verification while also including modules surrounding eligibility confirmation, dose scheduling and reminders, health assessments and symptom reporting, and providing users with push-notifications and contextual alerts.
We have also proposed state-produced physical vaccine cards that can be used for many of the functions of our app solution. This enables a privacy-focused solution for vaccination. Please see a thorough explanation in section 6.
The app is developed using open-source code and open standards. Similar to the exposure notification apps, the app does not request any PII.
PII including name, date of birth, and contact information is primarily used for user identification, contact, and record-keeping. Health information is stored to determine eligibility for vaccination based upon exclusion criteria and to track the interactions between various medical conditions and vaccination. Other personal information might be used for aggregate analysis and statistical purposes regarding equitable distribution among diverse populations. Our app-based approach addresses each of these functions without the use of PII.
Identification of an individual for record-keeping is performed using a pseudorandom identification number rather than name or date of birth. Previous health information can be inputted into the app for exclusion determination where it is not stored. As soon as the app determines eligibility for vaccination information shared in these questions will be deleted. Symptom and adverse event reporting can be performed either anonymously or with personal information that might lend insight into vaccine and medical condition interactions. All demographic information can be anonymized and aggregated for reporting.
We expect users seeking a privacy oriented approach to vaccination to use a physical card containing a digitally-signed QR code from the government.
PathCheck is a nonprofit organization originating in Dr. Ramesh Raskar’s lab at MIT. PathChck is the world’s largest open source, open standards nonprofit organization for COVID-19 and innovates across a broad array of problems stemming from the pandemic. PathCheck was the first organization to launch an EN app for contact tracing in COVID-19, successfully partnering with 6 US states and territories.
MIT SafePaths is a set of standards protocols and algorithms and open-source tools. The project on vaccination protocols is led by Ramesh Raskar at Trusted Pandemic Tech and MIT Media Lab, Sanjay Sarma at MIT Auto-ID Lab and Anna Lysyanskaya at Brown University.