PURE: A Framework for Analyzing Proximity-based Contact Tracing Protocols

TL;DR

This paper introduces PURE, a comprehensive framework for analyzing proximity-based contact tracing protocols focusing on privacy, utility, resiliency, and efficiency, by examining their design choices and properties.

Contribution

It systematically identifies key properties and design choices of PCT protocols, enabling thorough analysis and comparison of existing solutions.

Findings

PURE framework covers privacy, utility, resiliency, efficiency

Design choices significantly impact protocol properties

Provides a basis for evaluating and improving contact tracing protocols

Abstract

Many proximity-based tracing (PCT) protocols have been proposed and deployed to combat the spreading of COVID-19. In this paper, we take a systematic approach to analyze PCT protocols. We identify a list of desired properties of a contact tracing design from the four aspects of Privacy, Utility, Resiliency, and Efficiency (PURE). We also identify two main design choices for PCT protocols: what information patients report to the server, and which party performs the matching. These two choices determine most of the PURE properties and enable us to conduct a comprehensive analysis and comparison of the existing protocols.