This article got me thinking:
https://cointelegraph.com/news/managing-crowds-as-virus-restrictions-ease-will-take-gutsCould the solution as suggested allow for malls, beaches, parks etc. to open in a controlled and safe manner? Or is this a privacy dystopia?
My personal belief is that clever encryption could come a long way in this regard. Blockchain is not anonymous but pseudonymous, which in this case is ideal. A system does not have to know who you are, but if you might be infected.
Idea:
Infection risk scoring would be given to an address/wallet on Ethereum (or a comparable blockchain). For example a infection indicator could be sent in form of an certain NFT to a pseudonymous wallet? Only the owner of the wallet knows the address linked to their real world identity. When they have their ticket for a festival scanned all a smart ticket scanner would have to do is check if this person has a 'infection NFT' or not (a binary result) revealing nothing about a person beyond True/False..
Clearly cutting some corners here, but the idea of smart ticketing seems to make sense and using blockchain as data layer as for this to work the raw data needs to be on a data-source that is open, trustless and immutable.
RisksThe risk of this system is that people would be able to figure out (by cross referencing data of other people they have access to, effectively doxing an address to a real world user). However I think a lot of tools are available that would make such doxing impossible (like weekly/daily mixing).
What are your thoughts? Does blockchain have a role here?