On the Interoperability of Decentralized Exposure Notification Systems

Abstract

This report summarizes the requirements and proposes a high-level solution for interoperability across recently proposed COVID-19 exposure notification efforts. Our focus is on interoperability across exposure notification (EN) applications which are based on the decentralized Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) protocol driven by Google/Apple Exposure Notifications API (including DP3T and similar protocols). We distinguish different interoperability use cases, such as worldwide public EN interoperability, as well as interoperability in the enterprise EN systems. This report also proposes an API and a backend implementation architecture for EN interoperability. Finally, we propose using a permissioned blockchain-based solution for managing EN backend certificates and configurations (without storing any users' data on the blockchain) for helping address EN interoperability challenges across different vendors.