Proposal: A Phone Relay Protocol for Contact Tracing
->point-> Public Service Announcement: "answer your phone, and give your home address, email address, and birthdate to the person on the other end. It could be a contact tracer!"
<-counterpoint<- Public Service Announcement: "don't give away personal identification information, such as a social security number or birth date, to random callers. It could be coronavirus fraud!"
Solution: allow people being traced (the trace-EES) to call back a well-publicized, or state-approved, or both, public health phone number.
How it works: Person A gets tested for coronavirus. Test lab routes positive test result to contact tracing worker (the trace-ER.) Trace-ER calls trace-EE and leaves a voicemail notifies trace-EE of test result and requests callback at [state approved number] with routing number sequence. "Please call me back at the tracing hotline, 1-877-xxxx and personal code 4563 so we can give you more information."
(This proposal needs some good explainer graphics.)
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Further Reading:
Coronavirus fraud is everywhere: axios.com
"Please email us at ADH.CoronaVirus@arkansas.gov or call us at 1-800-803-7847, if you have not been reached by a contact tracer and you believe you may be a close contact." healthy.arkanas.gov
How to detect a contact tracing scam: wpri.com
If you see a number on your phone that says, 502-LOU-HEALTH, you should pick it up. The person on the other line will likely have important information for you: whas11.com
It's surprisingly easy for a hacker to call anyone from your personal phone number: businessinsider.com
This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.
