Aether - A Novel Method to Eliminate False Positives in Private Automated Contact Tracing

Contact tracing has shown promise to mitigate the negative effects of serious infectious diseases, such as COVID-19. Contact tracing can identify people who have potentially been exposed to COVID-19, as well as to enforce quarantine rules. However, many of these methods store location data, and therefore present privacy concerns. Bluetooth technology provides an effective solution to avoid violating fundamental privacy rights. However, Bluetooth technology does not have a good way of knowing whether devices are on the same level or different levels. In the case of multistory buildings, false positives can occur between two people who are within close proximity but on different floors. This paper proposes a novel solution in which the built-in barometer in mobile devices is used in combination with Bluetooth to avoid false positives. This paper establishes the viability and effectiveness of the solution through various experiments to make the current Bluetooth contact tracing technology even more accurate, which will ultimately save countless lives.