The University of Washington's Applied Physics Laboratory (APL-UW) received nearly $960,000 in funds from the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) through the Silicon Valley Innovation Program (SVIP) to devise testing criteria for digital COVID-19 contact tracing tools.
UW-APL will also study and create policy considerations for the usage of contact tracing applications to maintain civil liberty and privacy protection, DHS said Monday.
UW-APL and DHS will work with publicly trusted entities and domain experts to study policy implications of DCT app usage and to identify DCT app factors that need to be evaluated.
"By bringing together a diverse, inclusive group of experts, our goal is to openly develop test criteria that are publicly accepted, trusted and utilized," said Melissa Oh, managing director for SVIP at DHS.
In support of another COVID-19 response effort, DHS awarded $198,600 to AppCensus in February to develop a testing suite for digital contact tracing applications on smartphones.
