Case Study: ShareTrace - A Smart Digital Risk Assessment Service

Who is ShareTrace?

ShareTrace is led by a team from Case Western Reserve University. Their mobile app helps communities, businesses, and cities stay safe by empowering people to assess their own risks and preventing the spread of infection by using state-of-the-art decentralized Personal Data Accounts from Dataswift. Symptoms and contact histories collected from each user are stored in that user's private Personal Data Accounts (which that user owns and controls).

Originally started from a virtual, global hackathon, #hackfromhome, a challenge that involved 822 participants from 62 countries, ShareTrace members include researchers, developers, designers, and students.

Whether your motivation is an evening with friends or getting back to business, ShareTrace and Dataswift help provide a private, frictionless exchange of information. Together… we work to get back to normal again.

How did Dataswift help?

Dataswift enables ShareTrace to be "identity blind" with personal data accounts. The data is held within the individual's personal data account with no identifying information accessible by the ShareTrace app (in our platform rating, ShareTrace is rated AAA).

What benefit has it delivered?

By issuing Personal Data Accounts for ShareTrace, they can deliver all the benefits of the app without intruding on individuals' privacy. It also gives ownership of the data and the risk scores back to individuals for re-sharing with others.

What are the next steps they'll be taking with us?

The ShareTrace team aims to evolve the app into a health passport, where it's not just covid risk that can be placed into the Personal Data Account for re-sharing but all health "signals" such as vaccinations, allergies. Being able to share their data across borders and with other apps empowers individuals and enables ShareTrace to monetize the data in a privacy-preserving manner that is fully compliant with data regulations across the globe.