Research Article
On the Accuracy of Measured Proximity of Bluetooth-Based Contact Tracing Apps
@INPROCEEDINGS{10.1007/978-3-030-63086-7_4, author={Qingchuan Zhao and Haohuang Wen and Zhiqiang Lin and Dong Xuan and Ness Shroff}, title={On the Accuracy of Measured Proximity of Bluetooth-Based Contact Tracing Apps}, proceedings={Security and Privacy in Communication Networks. 16th EAI International Conference, SecureComm 2020, Washington, DC, USA, October 21-23, 2020, Proceedings, Part I}, proceedings_a={SECURECOMM}, year={2020}, month={12}, keywords={Bluetooth BLE Proximity measurement COVID-19 Contact tracing}, doi={10.1007/978-3-030-63086-7_4} }- Qingchuan Zhao
Haohuang Wen
Zhiqiang Lin
Dong Xuan
Ness Shroff
Year: 2020
On the Accuracy of Measured Proximity of Bluetooth-Based Contact Tracing Apps
SECURECOMM
Springer
DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-63086-7_4
Abstract
A large number of Bluetooth-based mobile apps have been developed recently to help tracing close contacts of contagious COVID-19 individuals. These apps make decisions based on whether two users are in close proximity (e.g., within 6 ft) according to the distance measured from the received signal strength (RSSI) of Bluetooth. This paper provides a detailed study of the current practice ofRSSI-based distance measurements among contact tracing apps by analyzing various factors that can affect theRSSIvalue and how each app has responded to them. Our analysis shows that configurations for the signal transmission power (TxPower) and broadcasting intervals that affectRSSIvary significantly across different apps and a large portion of apps do not consider these affecting factors at all, or with quite limited tuning.
