PathCheck Partners With UAB To Offer University’s COVID-19 Exposure Notification Technology To Other States, Countries

Press release from the University of Alabama at Birmingham:

by Tyler Greer -
November 19, 2020

The University of Alabama at Birmingham has partnered with the PathCheck Foundation — which was founded at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology — to include the university’s anonymous and encrypted COVID-19 exposure verification technology created for GuideSafe™ in PathCheck’s own exposure notification app. The partnership will enable other states and countries to best leverage the Google Apple Exposure Notification app as the nation and world continues to develop tools to help tackle the current pandemic.

“Several states have expressed interest in using the verification technology we developed as part of our GuideSafe™ multitool platform through the PathCheck platform, and we are delighted to be able to provide this exposure verification technology to help make it easier for other states to resolve problems we have already solved,” said Sue Feldman, Ph.D., professor and director of graduate programs in health informatics at UAB. “Our hope is that this is just the beginning of the expansion of the use of the UAB-created technology, and that it will be available to everyone very soon.”

GuideSafe™ — a multitool platform developed by a team of experts at UAB, part of the University of Alabama System, to combat COVID-19 — launched its exposure notification app statewide in Alabama on Aug. 17. To date, more than 140,000 Alabamians have downloaded the app with a total of 326 positive COVID-19 notifications generated statewide.

Hawaii, Puerto Rico, Guam and Cyprus have already adopted PathCheck and the UAB-created technology. The intellectual property is being offered non-exclusively to other states, and more are anticipated to be joining soon.

Read more for a timeline on Alabama’s GuideSafe™ Exposure Notification App:

• Governor Ivey announces COVID-19 testing, safety programs developed by UAB and ADPH.
• ADPH, UAB evolving campus entry efforts with launch of multifunctional GuideSafe™ platform.
• GuideSafe™exposure notification app launches statewide.
• GuideSafe™ Exposure Notification App update to enhance overall user experience.

“We are excited to bring UAB’s innovation to other states and countries as we seek ways to help us all navigate the COVID-19 pandemic,” said Ramesh Raskar, associate professor of Media Arts and Sciences, director of the Program on Distributed and Private Machine Learning at MIT, and founder of the PathCheck Foundation.

PathCheck Foundation is a 501©3 charitable organization working to build digital solutions for public health through open source software, standards and public health programs that help contain the pandemic, restart the economy and protect individual freedom and privacy.

Releasing the GuideSafe™ exposure verification technology to PathCheck will have a direct benefit on Alabamians, said Brian Rivers, associate vice president and chief technology officer at UAB.

“By allowing other states to use the verification technology, if Alabamians who utilize the GuideSafe™ app are exposed to people from other states who are also using the PathCheck app, that exposure notification would work in those cases and both parties would be notified,” Rivers said. “You don’t have to have both apps on your phone. If you’re an Alabamian, all you need is the GuideSafe™ app.”

Considering that PathCheck has already been adopted by five U.S. states, other territories and countries, this partnership — in which UAB offers the verification intellectual property non-exclusively to others — helps PathCheck to work more broadly to provide a more streamlined method of exposure verification that does not involve human intervention.

Supported by CARES Act funding, the GuideSafe™ Exposure Notification App was built by UAB with support from Birmingham-based MotionMobs in active collaboration with the Alabama Department of Public Health and integrating Google and Apple’s Exposure Notification System.

Download GuideSafe’s™ anonymous COVID-19 Exposure Technology App for Android or iPhone today.

The technology protects personal privacy and data while anonymously alerting a user of possible exposure to someone who later tests positive for COVID-19. GuideSafe™ app notifications can arm users with information needed to quarantine or seek testing and treatment — all while guarding user privacy.

For more information and a list of GuideSafe™ Exposure Notification App-specific FAQ’s, please visit guidesafe.org.

This press release was produced by the University of Alabama at Birmingham. The views expressed here are the author’s own.