Private Kit Reviews

3 stars for effort, but less for usefulness now. Suggestion: Many many people want to be able to do something and helping with their own contact tracing is a good start. Too much of the current contact tracing method relies on patient memory, which gets less precise as you go back in time. I suggest PrivateKit add a simple notebook feature where users can enter their own contacts. An easy interface to select the date & time and make a note if it was a public place (grocery store, work) or a private encounter including names __________ (eg met with 2 friends ____ & ____ for whatever activity). The info gets dropped out once it’s 15 days old. Should be easy coding and zero privacy issues since it’s user input and doesn’t get sent out anywhere. If the user gets the virus, they’re well prepared for the contact tracing interview and if they hear of someone getting it, they can scan their own history list to see if they should self isolate.
Criticisms: 1. Why is the “trail” marked with giant green bodies instead of just a line connecting dots? Simple dots would far better pinpoint locations where there may have been a stop (eg grocery). 2. It doesn’t seem to work well in our rural area. The ‘public data set’ is far from matching our state’s map of reported cases. But maybe that’s one of the parts under development.

Similar to what many others have said, I really want to use PrivateKit, for myself and for the greater good. But... I mean, what even is it? I have zero clue what it is doing, the instructions/information is nonexistent, the UX/UI is completely unhelpful (check overlap? with a bunch of overwhelming red circles everywhere? and I guess theres supposed to be some green trail?)... I mean what even is PrivateKit? I downloaded it because I figured MIT was up to good things... and I am sure they are, but as it stands now I can’t see the point in PrivateKit and there is no clue given to me about any potentially hidden benefits, the vision of what it hopes be or really any context at all. I reached out and offered to help with the design and haven’t gotten any reply (I have no doubt they are busy but just let me see how I can help!). I have deleted PrivateKit once already and will likely delete again now. If they want us to participate then they really gotta do a better job telling us about what this obtuse app we are allowing to track us at all times is even doing.

Want to help by using PrivateKit, however...
1) iOS 13.3.1 on old SE model iPhone MLM52LL/A1662
2) Location Denver, CO carrier AT&T
3) Check Overlap - map has not updated routes I’ve taken outside of the first walk in neighborhood on 3/28. Today is 3/30 PM and nothing despite several unique trips since 3/28.
4) can’t get the import/export/news icons - buried under For More Information visit ... box which is persistent
5) cant access the three vertical dots upper right hand corner - it is off screen. Seems GUI is displaying thinking this is another screen size then it is... maybe my
6) explanation /legend is required. Green targets with numbers. Red push pins. I assume Green is good, and red push pins are x-y of an encounter. Be nice to know...
7) Not a show stopper but the extreme zoomed out view default is annoying. Think it should default to the limits of the lat longs in the overlap file. Perhaps privacy issues ...
8) more info on what a “Hit” will look like. What info is sent to user when tracks with vector cross? I assume my “check overlap” screen will have a red circle

Not to criticize but to help the developers. I fully support the idea behind PrivateKit and want it to work. I’m reasonably tech and this needs to be more clear and obvious in order to expand the user group. As is I would Invision installs and then STOP LOGGING or deleting PrivateKit .

Appreciate this work in progress. The latest update has broken it for me unfortunately. The map to check your movements is now zoomed out and it’s very difficult to zoom in to check your visited locations if you’ve not moved too far. Previously the map was zoomed in to begin with. This latest update has not logged/does not show my movement and has somehow forgotten the previous weeks log of movement. Also there is a description box that covers half the screen and could be used to display the map instead. If it would go away once we’d read it it would give more screen real estate to map. Maybe if you guys got some funding and got an app developer to fix PrivateKit it would undoubtedly be a great help and save lives

There’s also other very useful applications that you left out of your explanation here:
If someone finds out later that they have been infected, then as long as PrivateKit has a database of the other phones that came near that phone, then it can directly warn people.
It would also have the information of everywhere someone has been, an automatic log of possible infection sources. And it could help create a log of possible people who might be infected now (even those that don’t have PrivateKit ).

Also, please make any data-sharing options opt-out instead of opt-in features. People often keep the default option!

Lastly, couldn’t an existing popular platform like Facebook implement something like this more immediately and save more lives. They should already have the systems there with check-ins and other features. You should contact some people in the company.

First, I thought I was signing up to help with a potentially new way to track our current situation, but never did learn the tricks. For the first few weeks, I noticed the circles around where I went and the potential intersections with others. Never understood how it could be useful, for example, when we drove along rides where bicyclists and pedestrians were walking, yet I was overlapping with people. Now, that doesn’t appear at all and the map page locks up when clicking the button to see my overlaps. I don’t understand how if it isn’t shared with anyone, how do I see their overlaps? Is this helping anyone or any organization?

Perhaps it’s me but the graphics don’t fully open and I have no idea how PrivateKit is meant to be helpful. When I pressed the Import “button” all that came up was the words “Rolling out soon”,no clue what that means. The Export “button” was no better, five lines of text ending mid-sentence and I couldn’t scroll down for any more information. Put simply, PrivateKit does nothing. Perhaps it was designed by Trumps alleged MIT professor uncle🤣 It seems like fairly simple crowd sharing information not sure what’s going on with it. Good luck getting it up and running, the idea seems good And for those concerned about privacy, that ship sailed a long time ago.

The new version allows us to import our location history but there is no indication that it actually worked. Did I do it right? Who knows. I downloaded the data, got a long string of odd characters, but did that import my location history into PrivateKit ? Please add something to show “we have location data from X to Y” or something to tell us that the data actually imported into PrivateKit .
The ability to “Visialize data streams” crashes PrivateKit .

Every time I try to open the map it crashes/closes PrivateKit before loading anything.

I think PrivateKit is still in beta stage, so I’m expecting bugs. However it’s not very usable at this stage. I’m keeping it so it’s still recording my locations Incase I need them, and hopefully the next updates will make it useful.

The previous version didn’t crash, but it didn’t display any data on the map either.

I’m not to excited about PrivateKit but chose to use it for what I hope is a greater good. That said it has bugs - the ‘news’ button does not work. The three buttons on the first screen - ‘Import’ ‘Export’ ‘News’ are partially hidden and hard to make visible. If you go to check overlap the text below ‘Show Me Trace Overlap’ which explains what data is used and where data comes from is partially hidden and you cannot bring it to the forefront. There is no explanation of the number in the circle on the map. This needs work.

I hope PrivateKit is giving the developers useful information; that’s why I continue to give it my location data. But as a user, it’s frustrating to not have any information on what, export, import or load data do. At least where I live in the SF area in California, loading public data doesn’t seem to reveal anything on the map.

I really want to like PrivateKit and use it for the greater good, but every time I go to “Check Overlap” I see a zoomed out map briefly before PrivateKit crashes. Because of these hard crashes, it’s hard to even know if my location is being logged at all. How do I know that PrivateKit is working properly?

I really appreciate the effort and will continue to allow PrivateKit to log my location, but I would also appreciate a fix to the map feature so I know PrivateKit is doing what it claims.

I’m participating even though I’m unsure what I’m doing. What does check overlap do? When I first installed, it did nothing. Now it just puts the number 7 over my residence. But all 7 markers are in a parking lot..
how does one input a positive test result? I don’t want to mix up the data with my non-positive status right now. But if that changes to positive, how would I update it?
Great idea... so many questions. Pls respond.

Fantastic idea and I want to participate. However I agree with just about every other review you’ve gotten.
It would be help if we could add a location when we go without our our phones or tracking devices. Hope you can get this up and working! We need it now. Go MIT!

I read the white paper on this, and it’s clear this could be a valuable tool in slowing or stopping the spread of Coronavirus. It goes above what South Korea has done in that it also protects your privacy. Imagine if we all downloaded...

The U/X does not exist. The user does not know what he/she is using PrivateKit for. There are giant purple blobs (supposedly your locations) and no green trails (as claimed) on PrivateKit . Furthermore the purple blobs (my supposed locations) are also showing up in areas I don’t even visit. Maybe GPS triangulation errors? I deleted PrivateKit and won’t bother downloading it as Apple and Google are working in contact tracing techniques which I am sure will be better implemented in the phones.

I’ve been using PrivateKit for 25 days now. Sometimes it shows my location. Most of the time, it doesn’t. Now it is not showing anything on the map. No logging of location, no trace data, no COVID overlap, nothing. And I’ve imported my Google information 4 times now over the past 25 days hoping it would give me something.
I really do not see the point.

I am trying to import my location data from Google.

There are multiple data formats from which to choose and multiple locations to which I may download the data … WHICH DATA FORMAT AND WHICH DOWNLOAD LOCATION do I need to specify for the import to work?

I am trying to Export my location data to help in the larger good. Export just takes me to the standard Share Sheet … HOW DO I GET MY DATA BACK TO MIT??

Everyone needs to download PrivateKit to help slow the spread of Coronavirus. We have needed an app for so long and I am so glad to see our top universities creating and app to help fix this problem.

I have PrivateKit running on my I-phone. But I mostly only wear my Apple Watch when out of the house. Will my watch serve as a suitable substitute for my phone?
Thanks
John

Here’s hoping big companies don’t sell our data. I’d much rather a system like this where it’s my choice to share and the government can’t track me

This needs to go viral like yesterday. This is where social networking is going to make a difference like no other time.

Great app! Great to know I can record my location without big brother or anyone else taking a peak as well

I thought the point was to share my location history with scientists.
Why am I only allowed to export to my contacts.
Am I supposed to send history file to my wife??

Why should we entrust this info with MIT? We all seen that professor talk about how stupid American’s are. I don’t feel safe handing over my info to them. Government already follows us. Heck, just ask google if you want to know where we’ve been. This just make’s it easier for them to collect info on the citizen’s.

Time to stop COVID!

When this prototype is updated, this is gonna be a revolutionary idea and implementation. Really excited to have PrivateKit—you should be too. Great stuff, super secure & safe.