Mobile Supervision Enables Effective Monitoring of Quarantines, Israel's Wave Guard Says
The company developed a system enabling governmental entities to supervise quarantines during the coronavirus crisis. Negotiations for the sale of the solution are already underway in a number of countries
Ami Rojkes Dombe
| 06/05/2020
Wave Guard's CEO, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Uzi Moscovici. Photo provided by the company
Wave Guard Technologies is developing a unique big data system based on statistics from mobile companies. Founded 11 years ago by veterans of the Israeli Navy, Wave Guard supplies solutions to the defense and homeland security sectors. The company's engine includes a patent-protected algorithm responsible for the crunching of data. Its analysis engine provides the capability to supervise mobile subscribers using mobile and metadata tracking. Based on this system, the company recently introduced a surveillance solution for enforcing quarantines during the coronavirus crisis. There are already negotiations for the sale of the solution in a number of countries.
"Our solution is based on the mobile provider data that the government clients acquire," a source at the company said. "We don't use trojan horses, it's only based on the mobile company data. That's also our advantage. There's no need to install an app on the mobile device, or for installations by the mobile providers. All that is needed for installation is a line of communication between our servers and the mobile company, and permission for access to the relevant data files."
Challenge of Penetration Rates
Along with the advantage of easy installation and non-dependence on the mobile provider or on the subscriber to enforce quarantines, the solution has the capability to restore data, that is to say, the data on whom the subscriber met. Unlike the epidemiological investigation of the patient, which could be affected by a person's forgetfulness or intentional concealment, Wave Guard's system is based on the raw data of the mobile suppliers.
"One of the country's challenges in implementing a supervision system amid the coronavirus crisis is the percentage of penetration among the public of monitoring apps. When a citizen is required to install an app on his or her phone, there is natural opposition to surveillance by the state, and there is also a technical problem of installing apps in old phones (such as 'kosher' phones in Israel)," explained Wave Guard's CEO, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Uzi Moscovici, ex-commander of the IDF's C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate, in a telephone interview with the Cybertech website.
According to Moscovici, the percentages of penetration of apps like Israel's "HaMagen" or ones from other countries are actually very low. "The reliance on mobile supervision isn't effective if the penetration rate is below 65-70 percent of the public. These kinds of penetration rates can only be achieved when using a solution that does not depend on the subscriber. Our solution is not dependent on the type of device, the version of the operating system, the use of GPS or the apps that are installed," explained Moscovici. "The system has been supervising tens of millions of mobile subscribers around the world for years."
The company's solution is based on international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), a unique number that every mobile network subscriber receives, and does not depend on the mobile provider. This identifier accompanies the specific device throughout the world. By using it, the provider can locate the device via a method called triangularization (use of antennas to identify the location of the subscriber). This data is collected by the provider, and is used by big data systems like that of Wave Guard.
The system's level of precision depends on the aforementioned mobile provider data. This precision is the result of the proximity of antennas to each other. The more antennas that there are in an area, the better the precision will be. The fewer antennas there are, the worse the precision will be. "The precision depends on the network. If the antennas aren't close to one another, and there aren't many base stations, the precision ranges from tens to hundreds of meters. If the antennas are close to one another, the precision reaches a two-digit number of meters," a company source says.
Reduction of False Positives
Another issue that has arisen in the Israeli and global media regarding quarantine supervision is that of false positives. Since citizens are quarantined for two weeks if they are confirmed to have come into contact with a patient, the precision of the result is the basis of the system's credibility in the eyes of the public. That is one of the reasons why it was decided in Europe to depend on Bluetooth protocol in addition to cellular tracking.
"In our system, confirmed contact is determined on the basis of additional parameters besides the distance between subscribers. One is the time aspect, how much time the subscribers were next to each other, how many times they met in the same area of space, and additional parameters. When calculating everything, we are able to reduce the incidence of false positives," a company source said. "As far as the question of effectiveness, it is preferable for a country that wants to stop the spread of the coronavirus to have a small number of false positives rather than a complete lack of supervision."
The company is also adapting to the privacy demands of the European Union in the context of surveillance of citizens during the coronavirus crisis. A system that has been adapted to these demands can, for example, delete information about the subscriber after a predetermined amount of time. It is also possible to determine whether the path of the epidemiological investigation will be made public or not. " The system enables the supervisory authorities in the country to determine the extent of the citizen's privacy in accordance with the demands of the European Union," Moscovici said.
The company developed a system enabling governmental entities to supervise quarantines during the coronavirus crisis. Negotiations for the sale of the solution are already underway in a number of countries
Ami Rojkes Dombe
| 06/05/2020
Wave Guard's CEO, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Uzi Moscovici. Photo provided by the company
Wave Guard Technologies is developing a unique big data system based on statistics from mobile companies. Founded 11 years ago by veterans of the Israeli Navy, Wave Guard supplies solutions to the defense and homeland security sectors. The company's engine includes a patent-protected algorithm responsible for the crunching of data. Its analysis engine provides the capability to supervise mobile subscribers using mobile and metadata tracking. Based on this system, the company recently introduced a surveillance solution for enforcing quarantines during the coronavirus crisis. There are already negotiations for the sale of the solution in a number of countries.
"Our solution is based on the mobile provider data that the government clients acquire," a source at the company said. "We don't use trojan horses, it's only based on the mobile company data. That's also our advantage. There's no need to install an app on the mobile device, or for installations by the mobile providers. All that is needed for installation is a line of communication between our servers and the mobile company, and permission for access to the relevant data files."
Challenge of Penetration Rates
Along with the advantage of easy installation and non-dependence on the mobile provider or on the subscriber to enforce quarantines, the solution has the capability to restore data, that is to say, the data on whom the subscriber met. Unlike the epidemiological investigation of the patient, which could be affected by a person's forgetfulness or intentional concealment, Wave Guard's system is based on the raw data of the mobile suppliers.
"One of the country's challenges in implementing a supervision system amid the coronavirus crisis is the percentage of penetration among the public of monitoring apps. When a citizen is required to install an app on his or her phone, there is natural opposition to surveillance by the state, and there is also a technical problem of installing apps in old phones (such as 'kosher' phones in Israel)," explained Wave Guard's CEO, Maj. Gen. (Res.) Uzi Moscovici, ex-commander of the IDF's C4I and Cyber Defense Directorate, in a telephone interview with the Cybertech website.
According to Moscovici, the percentages of penetration of apps like Israel's "HaMagen" or ones from other countries are actually very low. "The reliance on mobile supervision isn't effective if the penetration rate is below 65-70 percent of the public. These kinds of penetration rates can only be achieved when using a solution that does not depend on the subscriber. Our solution is not dependent on the type of device, the version of the operating system, the use of GPS or the apps that are installed," explained Moscovici. "The system has been supervising tens of millions of mobile subscribers around the world for years."
The company's solution is based on international mobile subscriber identity (IMSI), a unique number that every mobile network subscriber receives, and does not depend on the mobile provider. This identifier accompanies the specific device throughout the world. By using it, the provider can locate the device via a method called triangularization (use of antennas to identify the location of the subscriber). This data is collected by the provider, and is used by big data systems like that of Wave Guard.
The system's level of precision depends on the aforementioned mobile provider data. This precision is the result of the proximity of antennas to each other. The more antennas that there are in an area, the better the precision will be. The fewer antennas there are, the worse the precision will be. "The precision depends on the network. If the antennas aren't close to one another, and there aren't many base stations, the precision ranges from tens to hundreds of meters. If the antennas are close to one another, the precision reaches a two-digit number of meters," a company source says.
Reduction of False Positives
Another issue that has arisen in the Israeli and global media regarding quarantine supervision is that of false positives. Since citizens are quarantined for two weeks if they are confirmed to have come into contact with a patient, the precision of the result is the basis of the system's credibility in the eyes of the public. That is one of the reasons why it was decided in Europe to depend on Bluetooth protocol in addition to cellular tracking.
"In our system, confirmed contact is determined on the basis of additional parameters besides the distance between subscribers. One is the time aspect, how much time the subscribers were next to each other, how many times they met in the same area of space, and additional parameters. When calculating everything, we are able to reduce the incidence of false positives," a company source said. "As far as the question of effectiveness, it is preferable for a country that wants to stop the spread of the coronavirus to have a small number of false positives rather than a complete lack of supervision."
The company is also adapting to the privacy demands of the European Union in the context of surveillance of citizens during the coronavirus crisis. A system that has been adapted to these demands can, for example, delete information about the subscriber after a predetermined amount of time. It is also possible to determine whether the path of the epidemiological investigation will be made public or not. " The system enables the supervisory authorities in the country to determine the extent of the citizen's privacy in accordance with the demands of the European Union," Moscovici said.
Rare-earth elements between the United States of America and the People's Republic of China
The Eastern seas after Afghanistan: the UK and Australia come to the rescue of the United States in a clumsy way
The failure of the great games in Afghanistan from the 19th century to the present day
Russia, Turkey and United Arab Emirates. The intelligence services organize and investigate