Medicine
Digital Contact Tracing Privacy and Effectiveness Tradeoffs
Quick fact
In a simulation of a typical city, digital contact tracing apps needed at least 56% of the population to participate in order to stop the epidemic, yet privacy concerns were a major reason why real-world adoption often fell far below that threshold.
Why this is interesting
When you got a COVID-19 exposure warning on your phone, was it a privacy violation or a lifesaver? How can an app know you were near an infected person without knowing where you were?