Digital contact tracing using smartphone apps has been proposed as a potential tool to limit the spread of COVID-19. Traditional contact tracing involves identifying individuals who test positive for a disease, then determining, locating, and isolating those who have come into contact with the infected individuals. In the COVID-19 pandemic, the large number of infected persons and the high rate of transmission requires a vast expansion of contact tracers (Begley, 2020). Given the current shortage of human contact tracers and the time required to recruit and train sufficient numbers, some public health experts and technologists have recommended deploying contact tracing smartphone apps as a way to supplement traditional contact tracing (Ferretti et al., 2020).
