NURNBERG, Germany — German technology company MYNXG introduced a blockchain technology to enable privacy-compliant pandemic tracking on regular smartphones. People can download an app on their smartphone and use any existing near-field communication (NFC) to connect their phones to the MYNXG blockchain. NFC readers are well-known from contactless payment systems. This technology provides privacy when monitoring individual movements or alerting people if there is an infection in their contact chain.

“This technology is revolutionary and years ahead of anything else”, says Bernd Moeller, MYNXG’s founder and CEO. “My entire life has been dedicated to developing mobile technology, ranging from smartphone architectures and global 4G standards to secure mobile payments. MYNXG is normally focused on developing industrial solutions, but when the first signs of the COVID-19 pandemic appeared, we checked how we could utilize our technologies to save lives.”

Each smartphone needs to be securely connected to the MYNXG blockchain, which can be done using NFC readers available in our daily lives, like ATMs and payment terminals. With this technology, it is possible to automatically alert people when someone in their recent contact chain has been diagnosed with COVID-19 by a medical professional and guide them to the nearest test center. Another possibility is to establish pandemic safety zones for medical professionals, which cannot be accessed without the necessary approvals. This reduces the risk of cross-contaminations.

Through this, governments and medical professionals will get real-time insights into the pandemic spread. The MYNXG blockchain protects individual privacy by ensuring no personal data or movement information will be shared.

“Of course, we do understand that you can get detailed movements data through mobile operators, but warning people and tracking movements will not be without significant privacy compromises”, said Mirko Schnitzler, CSO, MYNXG. “With our technology, we can create an effective warning and tracking systems without compromising privacy. We will now start working closely with selected governments and NFC infrastructure operators to accelerate the deployment of this critical infrastructure.”