A team at the UK's Cambridge University has created an application to collect the speaking, breathing and coughing sounds of participants in the hope of building predictive models to "contribute to the early diagnosis of COVID-19".
Mascolo said: "Having spoken to doctors, one of the most common things they have noticed about patients with the virus is the way they catch their breath when they're speaking, as well as a dry cough, and the intervals of their breathing patterns. There are very few large datasets of respiratory sounds, so to make better algorithms that could be used for early detection, we need as many samples from as many participants as we can get. Even if we don't get many positive cases of coronavirus, we could find links with other health conditions."
Predictive models work by collecting large data samples that are already categorised to develop algorithms that can be applied to new samples and make predictions about them.
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The team behind the app got in touch to clarify the service's use of reCAPTCHA. Doctorate researcher Dimitris Spathis said: "We use the reCAPTCHA system only to make sure that the website is robust against bots, as you correctly mention. A web application that allows users to upload recordings and similar files is by default vulnerable against various automated attacks.
"However, Google has no access to the data nor is in any way accessing any of the data transmitted. Also, according to the reCAPTCHA Terms of Service, you must explicitly inform visitors about the reCAPTCHA implementation on your site."
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