Topic: Blockchain for the Pandemic (Read 262 times)

If a covid patient is not using Aarogya Setu app then his data will not be shown in the app.
The main problem they face is the asymptomatic patient. And in India almost 70-80% of patients are asymptomatic. So lots are roaming freely without knowing that they are spreading the virus. This will challenge any type of database or blockchain setup. 

As far as i understand, it's also to understand if there is a case near you. If so, you can be on guard to even buy your necessities with more care.


Having said that, am not using the app   

The security and confidence can be there as long as the details are not leaked, we experienced the huge leakage of aadhar card in the past and the government was ensuring everything is safe but millions of cards were available online.

Introducing a blockchain can help in the safety of personal information, like tampering of our data or someone deleting our data but it does not give you the guarantee that the data will not be leaked.

If you are not roaming outside you really do not need a surveillance system attached to you. Since it tracks the location and if you are in a major city and living in a big society it is possible that it will give false positives to the government.

The thing that made me think about the app is

" Aarogya Setu tries to determine the risk if one has been near (within six feet of) a COVID-19 - infected person, by scanning through a database of known cases across India."

If someone is infected and later identified to be a positive case then it will give the government the information about anyone who had access or crossed path with the infected person. I hope this is what they meant by this statement.

Interesting Thought, Not New though

It can sure be useful to keep track, not just for Covid but for patients all over. But as always, some of us prefer privacy of such data while some don't mind/understand.

Regardless, a prototype may be launched where permission is taken from users to use their data in such sense.



Indeed, a hacker even managed to bypass all the details including location and name to get the result.
not first time Indian govt is collecting data. They might not have a bigger Picture for it in current scenario but given the security on such govt apps, can't really be sure.

Anyway, it's a need for now to have the app for your own security i guess

'Aarogya Setu' app launched by government works exactly as you are suggesting. Data of citizens are filled on the app and it will alert you if someone with Coronavirus symptoms come close to you. However, an ethical hacker questioned the security of app last week to which Aarogya Setu team replied that the app is completely safe. Here's the snippet of questions and answer from team:


(open image on new tab for clear view)

Although the questions raised by hacker aren't related to personal data but still I think introduction of blockchain based database will help in complete security of personal information.

There are already discussions about using blockchain to help with the supply chain.
IBM, Oracle, John Hopkins and MiPesa like big player already jumped on this bandwagon to integrate COVID-19 data from WHO.

The restrictions that are implemented and tracking of every patient and collecting data during this pandemic can be justified but what is the guarantee that it will not be forced upon later and if that happens it will be a blow to our privacy. The pandemic has given the opportunity for every government to track every movement and if there is a immutable record just think about the consequence regarding your privacy.

Immutable records are necessary to store official and government transaction and data and it must not be used that will affect our privacy.

This idea has been already proposed by many popular faces including Bill Gates but not on blockchain but on database or somewhere they can store all these data.But many other people says that it will have huge impact on people's privacy in long term because we are giving sensitive data about every individuals on the country/world so they can sell all those data to any company and make huge money from it.

If you were given a task of thinking how can a Blockchain solution be used to treat an issue post the current pandemic what would it be?
How can Blockchain be used to solve a problem occurred in the current pandemic so that it can help us out whenever the next pandemic occurs.

Thinking about the above questions I came up with something.

We all know how Covid-19 is spreading like wildfire these days and it is being difficult day by day to keep a track of every patient.
Even when a patient is discharged in some cases he/she is getting back those Covid-19 symptoms and in some cases people are dying even after being discharged. The number of positive cases, active cases, deceased are increasing daily and it is not being an easy task to keep a track of all of them.

What if Blockchain was used to keep a track of every patient. Every patient's details could be entered in a record and it's hash could be stored on the blockchain so that whenever somebody needed to fetch details of such a patient then it could have been retrieved easily from the Blockchain.
This could also help to identify those cases where people had a history of active Covid-19 case and hence the doctors could treat them likewise.

I don't know if it's a good idea or not but I do know that there is something missing here. There is something that should be added here so that it can be an effective solution.


1. What can be added more here ?
2. What is your idea of a blockchain based solution that can help us post this pandemic?

P.S : The above solution can also be used for distribution of masks and sanitizers and to keep a track record of people who have received them. The record of people can again be hashed and sent to the Blockchain.