PathCheck Foundation is a

volunteer Volunteering is a voluntary act of an individual or group freely giving time and labor for community service. Many volunteers are specifically trained in the areas they work, such as medicine, education, or emergency rescue. Others serve ...

-led nonprofit organization founded in February 2020 at

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the m ...

that develops

COVID-19 apps COVID-19 apps include mobile-software applications for digital contact-tracing - i.e. the process of identifying persons ("contacts") who may have been in contact with an infected individual - deployed during the COVID-19 pandemic. Numerous ...

for

digital contact tracing Digital contact tracing is a method of contact tracing relying on tracking systems, most often based on mobile devices, to determine contact between an infected patient and a user. It came to public prominence in the form of COVID-19 apps during ...

. The organization consists of over 1000 volunteers. In addition, various companies donate employee time to the foundation. The organization was previously known as COVID Safe Paths (and before MIT Safe Paths) but was renamed PathCheck Foundation on June 28, 2020. The original technology for the PathCheck app was based on the

Private Kit: Safe Paths app created by

Ramesh Raskar Ramesh Raskar is a Massachusetts Institute of Technology Associate Professor and head of the MIT Media Lab's Camera Culture research group. Previously he worked as a Senior Research Scientist at Mitsubishi Electric Research Laboratories (MERL) ...

with Sandy Pentland, Kent Larson, Steve Penrod, and Kevin Esvelt. The founding team included Abhishek Singh, Kristen Vilcans, Alina Clough, Francesco Maria Bendetti, Kaushal Jain, Khahlil Louisy, Sienna Leis, Greg Nadeau, Rachel Barbar, and John Werner. On July 8, 2020,

, chairman of PathCheck Foundation, addressed the

United States House of Representatives The United States House of Representatives, often referred to as the House of Representatives, the U.S. House, or simply the House, is the Lower house, lower chamber of the United States Congress, with the United States Senate, Senate being ...

Committee on Financial Services Task Force on Artificial Intelligence during their hearing on "Exposure Notification and Contact Tracing: How AI Helps Localities Reopen Safely and Researchers Find a Cure", describing the use of

contact tracing In public health, contact tracing is the process of identifying persons who may have been exposed to an infected person ("contacts") and subsequent collection of further data to assess transmission. By tracing the contacts of infected individua ...

technologies used by PathCheck. He also spoke about PathCheck's surveillance and privacy methods at the

Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...

Tech Health event. Apps developed by PathCheck have been adopted by the governments of

Minnesota Minnesota () is a state in the upper midwestern region of the United States. It is the 12th largest U.S. state in area and the 22nd most populous, with over 5.75 million residents. Minnesota is home to western prairies, now given over to ...

Hawaii Hawaii ( ; haw, Hawaii or ) is a state in the Western United States, located in the Pacific Ocean about from the U.S. mainland. It is the only U.S. state outside North America, the only state that is an archipelago, and the only stat ...

Guam Guam (; ch, Guåhan ) is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States in the Micronesia subregion of the western Pacific Ocean. It is the westernmost point and territory of the United States (reckoned from the geographic cent ...

Puerto Rico Puerto Rico (; abbreviated PR; tnq, Boriken, ''Borinquen''), officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico ( es, link=yes, Estado Libre Asociado de Puerto Rico, lit=Free Associated State of Puerto Rico), is a Caribbean island and Unincorporated ...

Teton County, Wyoming Teton County is a county in the U.S. state of Wyoming. As of the 2020 United States Census, the population was 23,331. Its county seat is Jackson. Its west boundary line is also the Wyoming state boundary shared with Idaho and the southern tip o ...

(home of

Yellowstone National Park Yellowstone National Park is an American national park located in the western United States, largely in the northwest corner of Wyoming and extending into Montana and Idaho. It was established by the 42nd U.S. Congress with the Yellowston ...

), and

Cyprus Cyprus ; tr, Kıbrıs (), officially the Republic of Cyprus,, , lit: Republic of Cyprus is an island country located south of the Anatolian Peninsula in the eastern Mediterranean Sea. Its continental position is disputed; while it is geo ...

References

{{reflist 501(c)(3) organizations Software associated with the COVID-19 pandemic