@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2{\textquotedblright} of the pandemic, when lockdown and other restriction measures are progressively withdrawn, in order to avoid or minimize contagion resurgence.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} }