Toyota Patent for Infection Tracking System

ChangeBridge: Patent Grants - Health Informatics (G16H)

Published March 24th, 2026

Detected March 24th, 2026

Summary

The USPTO has granted Toyota a patent for an information processing system designed to track infectious disease outbreaks. The system uses movement history to identify infected individuals' locations and notify potential contacts of exposure risks.

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What changed

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted Toyota Jidosha Kabushiki Kaisha a patent (US12586688B2) for an information processing system and method aimed at tracking infectious disease spread. The patented technology involves a central apparatus that acquires movement history of infected individuals to identify visited places and times. This information is then used to notify other apparatuses associated with those locations, which in turn identify users who visited during the critical times and inform them of potential infection risks.

While this is a patent grant and not a regulatory mandate, it signifies a technological development in public health surveillance. Companies developing or implementing similar systems, particularly those handling sensitive health and location data, should be aware of this patented technology. Compliance officers should consider how such systems might interact with existing data privacy regulations (e.g., HIPAA, GDPR, CCPA/CPRA) and public health reporting requirements, especially if their organizations plan to utilize or develop similar tracking mechanisms.

Source document (simplified)

← USPTO Patent Grants

Information processing system, information processing method, and recording media

Grant US12586688B2 Kind: B2 Mar 24, 2026

Assignee

TOYOTA JIDOSHA KABUSHIKI KAISHA

Inventors

Shin Sakurada, Kazuya Nishimura, Takumi Fukunaga, Josuke Yamane, Soutaro Kaneko, Rio Minagawa

Abstract

An information processing system includes a first information processing apparatus, and a plurality of second information processing apparatuses. The first information processing apparatus acquires movement history information on an infected person with a predetermined infectious disease, identifies, based on the movement history information, a first place that the infected person visited and a first visit date and time, and notifies the second information processing apparatus associated with the first place of information about the first place and the first visit date and time. Each second information processing apparatus identifies, based on visit history information including a visit date and time of the predetermined place by users who are associated with the predetermined place, a first user who visited the first place on the first visit date and time, and notify the first user of possibility of being infected with the predetermined infectious disease.