Open Access

ARTICLE

Validating the Correct Wearing of Protection Mask by Taking a Selfie: Design of a Mobile Application “CheckYourMask” to Limit the Spread of COVID-19

Karim Hammoudi^1,2,*, Adnane Cabani³, Halim Benhabiles⁴, Mahmoud Melkemi^1,2
1 Department of Computer Science, Université de Haute-Alsace, IRIMAS, Mulhouse, F-68100, France
2 Université de Strasbourg, Strasbourg, 67081, France
3 Normandie Univ, UNIROUEN, ESIGELEC, IRSEEM, Rouen, 76000, France
4 Univ. Lille, CNRS, Centrale Lille, Univ. Polytechnique Hauts-de-France, Yncrea Hauts-de-France, UMR 8520-IEMN, Lille F-59000, France
* Corresponding Author: Karim Hammoudi. Email:
(This article belongs to this Special Issue: Computer Modelling of Transmission, Spread, Control and Diagnosis of COVID-19)

Computer Modeling in Engineering & Sciences 2020, 124(3), 1049-1059. https://doi.org/10.32604/cmes.2020.011663

Received 22 May 2020; Accepted 21 July 2020; Issue published 21 August 2020

Abstract

In a context of a virus that is transmissive by sputtering, wearing masks appear necessary to protect the wearer and to limit the propagation of the disease. Currently, we are facing the 2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic. Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is an infectious disease with first symptoms similar to the flu. The symptom of COVID-19 was reported first in China and very quickly spreads to the rest of the world. The COVID-19 contagiousness is known to be high by comparison with the flu. In this paper, we propose a design of a mobile application for permitting everyone having a smartphone and being able to take a picture to verify that his/her protection mask is correctly positioned on his/her face. Such application can be particularly useful for people using face protection mask for the first time and notably for children and old people. The designed method exploits Haar-like feature descriptors to detect key features of the face and a decision-making algorithm is applied. Experimental results show the potential of this method in the validation of the correct mask wearing. To the best of our knowledge, our work is the only one that currently proposes a mobile application design “CheckYourMask” for validating the correct wearing of protection mask.

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Keywords

Face protection masks; public health support; health education; COVID-19; coronavirus; e-health; m-health; mobile health; public health system; epidemic prevention and control

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Citations