Coalition, a Global Contact Tracing App, Open Sources its Code to Help Nations Fight COVID-19 While Preserving Privacy

SAN FRANCISCO, April 29, 2020 /PRNewswire/ -- Coalition Network, a non-profit foundation, released the code of its Coalition App, a free, global, privacy-by-design contact tracing app that helps stop the spread of COVID-19.  Coalition Network ecosystem partners include the Nodle team, the French Government (Inria), the City of Berkeley (California), COVID Alliance, TCN Coalition, and CoEpi, to name a few.  Coalition's technology is available so governments and health organizations around the world can complement and scale manual contact tracing efforts.

The Coalition App, available in the Google Play Store and soon for iOS, is based on an original research paper written by the Nodle team and independents. Titled "Whisper Tracing: an open and privacy first protocol for contact tracing," it highlights their expertise in secure Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE), decentralized networks, mesh networking, secure identity, and modern cryptography. Whisper Tracing was reviewed by peers and cryptographers from MIT, Stanford, USC and Oxford University. 

The code includes Agathe, short for Anonymous GATT Heterogeneous Exchange, a framework that includes Coalition's Bluetooth expertise on iOS and Android. GATT is a communication language used in Bluetooth Low Energy to communicate between devices. On iOS, the code includes features which enable the app to work seamlessly in the background and foreground. Agathe is versatile and can plug in with the ROBust and privacy-presERving proximity Tracing protocol, aka ROBERT, and the Whisper Tracing protocol. The Android code is available today and can be found at http://coalitionnetwork.org, along with a public GitHub repository. The iOS version will be available in a few days.

"We hope to enable a faster adoption of the Coalition App and help government and health organizations leverage Coalition code for their own contact tracing solutions. We're thrilled to be offering Agathe, our Bluetooth component, on a pro-bono basis to Inria (France's National Institute for Research in Digital Science & Technology) to help them create their own mobile contact tracing app." — Micha Benoliel, Cofounder and President, Coalition Network

The French government has entrusted Inria to lead their StopCovid project efforts to develop a mobile contact tracing app. Inria invited Coalition Network to join StopCovid, which includes a consortium of private and public organizations such as ANSSI, Capgemini, Dassault Systèmes, Inserm, Lunabee Studio, Orange, Santé Publique France, Withings, and many more. (Inria press release).

About Coalition Network:
Coalition Network is a non-profit foundation that includes the Nodle.io team, as well as organizations and individuals that have partnered on this initiative. Coalition's app and technology were developed by the team behind Nodle, an Internet of Things (IoT) connectivity and security startup, and a few independents. The Nodle.io founders previously created FireChat, a peer-to-peer Bluetooth-based messaging technology used to stay connected and communicate in areas without internet access.

Contact:
Nicole Brunet
[email protected] 
+1 (408) 761-1803

SOURCE Coalition Network Foundation