Testing for Social Distancing Apps

In addition to keeping your distance as the simplest and most effective instrument of containing the global corona pandemic, contact tracing is considered an important measure aswell, to interrupt existing chains of infection. In order to support health authorities in their task of analog contact tracing, social distancing apps were developed as a digital aid for contact tracing. Many companies are also looking for an individual solution for contact tracing within their company to protect their employees. Due to the novelty of the apps, they must be checked first in regards to their effectiveness by using new test procedures. Although the Exposure Notification API from Apple and Google provides the distances and duration of encounters using distance estimation via Bluetooth, this data can only be verified by comparing them with the actual distances and duration of encounters.

In the course of the tests for the Corona-Warn-App, Fraunhofer IIS has already carried out more than 1,000 hours of testing in order to compare the risk assessments implemented in the social distancing app with the epidemiological specifications of the Robert Koch Institute, in regard to proximity and contact duration. Such tests are carried out partly with test subjects in real environments, partly in an automated test setup in the test center L.I.N.K.  in Nuremberg.