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- Zcash has partnered with the Temporary Contact Number (TCN) coalition in making coronavirus contract tracing possible.
- Tracing application developed for the purpose of an open-source alternative that eliminates the risk of individual privacy is threatened.
On April 12, 2020 crypto expert Sydney Ifergan tweeted his concern regarding the development of contact tracing technologies that do not compromise with the privacy of people, he stated about the project Zcash that has partnered with the Temporary Contact Number (TCN) coalition in making coronavirus contract tracing possible.
Privacy Concerns of the Contact Tracing
The ongoing crisis of coronavirus pandemic up until now has cost thousands of lives and has put the whole world at stake. With the number of infections being reported worldwide, to achieve the state of normalcy is a distant dream. The only strong key that has proven to be successful in the fight against this virus has been ‘Social Distancing’.
The majority of the countries worldwide have implemented national lockdowns to slow down the spreading of this virus to a level where it doesn’t cost the health facilities to be overburdened and to store enough time in coming up with an effective vaccine. These lockdowns have been implemented in the hope of bringing the count of infections to a lower number.
These lockdowns are being aided with tracking and contact tracing of confirmed and suspicious COVID-19 carriers. However, the limitation it poses is privacy concerns. However noble the intentions might be, there is always a question about personal privacy by those who are afraid of the long-term repercussions on the same.
Despite the immediate COVID-19 threat, it does not necessarily imply that all of them are on-board with privacy threatening contact tracing apps. This is a cause of the fears added by the rise in global surveillance employed by totalitarian regimes.
Zcash, in association with TCN
In an initiative to getting rid of such fears and as a solution to the concerns posed, privacy-focused blockchain project Zcash has associated with the Temporary Contact Number (TCN) coalition, for the purpose of developing an open-source alternative to contact tracing that eliminates the risk of individual privacy being threatened. In regard of the same, Ifergan had his saying through his tweet.
Zcash is one of the leading privacy-focused distributed ledger technology (DLT) projects that share the spotlight with Monero (XMR) and Dash (DASH). It is reported to have joined the TCN on April 7, 2020. Same as Zcash, the TCN Coalition is also a privacy-first protocol through which the development and running of blockchain applications could be readily implemented. Its features include being open-source, being free of charge, and also extensibility.
