Development of technology to identify close contacts of infectious diseases within 10 minutes without location information

A domestic research team has developed a technology that quickly identifies close contacts of infectious diseases without using personal location information.

At an online seminar co-hosted by KIST and the Korean Association of Scientists and Engineers on the 23rd, Senior Researcher Taek-Jin Lee of the Safety Enhancement and Convergence Research Center at the Korea Institute of Science and Technology (KIST) introduced the digital contact tracing system (CTS), a recently developed pinpoint prevention system. introduced

Currently, quarantine authorities are monitoring the location information system (GPS) of the confirmed person, the CCTV of the place visited, the history of accessing QR codes, and the history of credit card use to identify close contacts of the confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). is in use

However, since GPS is useless indoors, it cannot be used to identify indoor movement, and CCTV requires people to go through and check the video one by one.

Contact notification through QR code access history does not directly confirm contact, but only informs that the person was in the same store as the confirmed person, so it is unreasonable to use it to identify close contacts in large stores such as department stores or large marts. .

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Senior Researcher Lee decided that ‘who they contacted’ is more important than where the confirmed person was, and concentrated on finding out who came in contact with the confirmed person by comparing RF (Radio Frequency) signals.

Since the received signal strength of the RF signal reflects the characteristics of the space, he explains that by analyzing the combination of the received signals, it is possible to estimate whether two people were in a close space.

Regarding the CTS technology, senior researcher Lee said, “As a result of measuring the accuracy of the CTS technology based on about 300,000 data, it showed an accuracy of about 92%.”

In addition, he emphasized, “The possibility of personal information infringement is very low because it analyzes the signal itself to estimate the possibility of spatial contact, not personal information such as location.”

CTS technology was introduced and operated in the ‘2022 DB Group Badminton Korea League’ hosted by the Korea Industrial Badminton Federation from the 20th, and is scheduled to start a pilot service in KIST this month. KIST is also discussing the introduction of the service with Hyundai Motor Company Yangjae Headquarters and National Health Insurance Ilsan Hospital.

“Even if you don’t have a smartphone, you can use the service if you have an RF device,” said senior researcher Lee.

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