Contact tracing is a critical tool in fighting the COVID-19 pandemic, enabling health officials to track and slow the disease’s spread. Mobile phones offer opportunities to improve the accuracy of contact tracing but come with risk of creating a new surveillance infrastructure. Join us for a talk about the benefits and drawbacks of contact tracing, its widespread use, and digital contact tracing methods being developed at the UW and Microsoft Research to protect the privacy of individuals.
 
About the Speaker:
Stefano Tessaro is an associate professor in the Paul G. Allen School of Computer Science & Engineering. His research centers on cryptography, computer security and privacy. Tessaro recently partnered on a project to build privacy-focused digital contact tracing technologies as part of the PACT project at UW and Microsoft Research, and is a contributor to the ongoing development of contact tracing apps for the Washington state government. He received his Ph.D. from ETH Zurich; before joining the UW, he was an assistant professor at UC Santa Barbara.