@article {1400, title = {Give more data, awareness and control to individual citizens, and they will help COVID-19 containment}, year = {2021}, month = {2021/02/02}, abstract = {The rapid dynamics of COVID-19 calls for quick and effective tracking of virus transmission chains and early detection of outbreaks, especially in the {\textquotedblleft}phase 2{\textquotedblright} of the pandemic, when lockdown and other restriction measures are progressively withdrawn, in order to avoid or minimize contagion resurgence. For this purpose, contact-tracing apps are being proposed for large scale adoption by many countries. A centralized approach, where data sensed by the app are all sent to a nation-wide server, raises concerns about citizens{\textquoteright} privacy and needlessly strong digital surveillance, thus alerting us to the need to minimize personal data collection and avoiding location tracking. We advocate the conceptual advantage of a decentralized approach, where both contact and location data are collected exclusively in individual citizens{\textquoteright} {\textquotedblleft}personal data stores{\textquotedblright}, to be shared separately and selectively (e.g., with a backend system, but possibly also with other citizens), voluntarily, only when the citizen has tested positive for COVID-19, and with a privacy preserving level of granularity. This approach better protects the personal sphere of citizens and affords multiple benefits: it allows for detailed information gathering for infected people in a privacy-preserving fashion; and, in turn this enables both contact tracing, and, the early detection of outbreak hotspots on more finely-granulated geographic scale. The decentralized approach is also scalable to large populations, in that only the data of positive patients need be handled at a central level. Our recommendation is two-fold. First to extend existing decentralized architectures with a light touch, in order to manage the collection of location data locally on the device, and allow the user to share spatio-temporal aggregates{\textemdash}if and when they want and for specific aims{\textemdash}with health authorities, for instance. Second, we favour a longer-term pursuit of realizing a Personal Data Store vision, giving users the opportunity to contribute to collective good in the measure they want, enhancing self-awareness, and cultivating collective efforts for rebuilding society.}, isbn = {1572-8439}, doi = {https://doi.org/10.1007/s10676-020-09572-w}, url = {https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10676-020-09572-w}, author = {Mirco Nanni and Andrienko, Gennady and Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo and Boldrini, Chiara and Bonchi, Francesco and Cattuto, Ciro and Chiaromonte, Francesca and Comand{\'e}, Giovanni and Conti, Marco and Cot{\'e}, Mark and Dignum, Frank and Dignum, Virginia and Domingo-Ferrer, Josep and Ferragina, Paolo and Fosca Giannotti and Riccardo Guidotti and Helbing, Dirk and Kaski, Kimmo and Kert{\'e}sz, J{\'a}nos and Lehmann, Sune and Lepri, Bruno and Lukowicz, Paul and Matwin, Stan and Jim{\'e}nez, David Meg{\'\i}as and Anna Monreale and Morik, Katharina and Oliver, Nuria and Passarella, Andrea and Passerini, Andrea and Dino Pedreschi and Pentland, Alex and Pianesi, Fabio and Francesca Pratesi and S Rinzivillo and Salvatore Ruggieri and Siebes, Arno and Torra, Vicenc and Roberto Trasarti and Hoven, Jeroen van den and Vespignani, Alessandro} } @article {723, title = {Returners and explorers dichotomy in human mobility}, journal = {Nat Commun}, volume = {6}, year = {2015}, month = {09}, abstract = {The availability of massive digital traces of human whereabouts has offered a series of novel insights on the quantitative patterns characterizing human mobility. In particular, numerous recent studies have lead to an unexpected consensus: the considerable variability in the characteristic travelled distance of individuals coexists with a high degree of predictability of their future locations. Here we shed light on this surprising coexistence by systematically investigating the impact of recurrent mobility on the characteristic distance travelled by individuals. Using both mobile phone and GPS data, we discover the existence of two distinct classes of individuals: returners and explorers. As existing models of human mobility cannot explain the existence of these two classes, we develop more realistic models able to capture the empirical findings. Finally, we show that returners and explorers play a distinct quantifiable role in spreading phenomena and that a correlation exists between their mobility patterns and social interactions.}, url = {http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/ncomms9166}, author = {Luca Pappalardo and Filippo Simini and S Rinzivillo and Dino Pedreschi and Fosca Giannotti and Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo} }