Universal Contact Tracing™ (that doesn’t rely on smartphones)
Short Summary: Microshare’s Universal Contact Tracing solution helps mitigate contagion risk during outbreaks and the deconfining phase for large enterprises. The solution traces the proximity of workers and users in facilities and closed areas through inexpensive Bluetooth beacons and long-range, low-power LoRaWAN™ networks, closing a loophole opened by systems relying on smartphones.
Universal Contact Tracing featured in the Financial Times. Read more here.
Factories, warehouses, hospitals, construction sites, prisons, barracks, schools or retirement homes are many of the buildings where smartphones and public apps are not a reliable solution. Often, people within these facilities either are prohibited from using a smartphone, may not own one or simply refuse to use one. Even those carrying smartphones on a regular basis may have disabled geo-tracking.
Yet these people are no less vulnerable than others to COVID-19 exposure or future outbreaks. Indeed, in the case of the elderly or immuno-compromised, even higher vulnerability – to exposure to COVID-19 or future infectious outbreaks. This means the smartphone-based contact tracing solutions being jointly spearheaded by Apple and Google and adopted by many countries and companies may prove less than totally effective. For many private and public sector use cases, a more comprehensive solution is required that does not rely on smartphones, which even today are a universally adopted technology.
Drawing on Microshare’s and our partner Kerlink‘s deep experience in asset tracking within facilities and ring-fenced properties, our cost-effective solution employs industry-standard and battle-tested components, including inexpensive Bluetooth beacons, long-range scanners and low-power LoRaWAN® networks to collect and securely transfer the information.
Closing the technological loopholes
Without relying on personal devices that raise privacy and reliability issues, Microshare’s Universal Contact Tracing solution can be deployed in weeks rather than months or years. With no need to design new hardware, install new networks or data management systems, Universal Contact Tracing can within days deliver the intelligence that enables infection risk mitigation and brings peace of mind to facility occupants and operators alike.
Designed over many years to be inter-operative with standard interfaces and widely deployed commercial data dashboards, Universal Contact Tracing ensures end-to-end security, privacy and reliability for the delivery of critical information where it’s needed. Universal Contact Tracing can be deployed quickly by non-technical staff. The data it produces is secure, GDPR compliant and delivered through our patent-pending rules and sharing engine to only the right, designated people at the right time.
How it works
Universal Contact Tracing produces outcomes very similar to those proposed by the two smartphone giants, but with higher reliability, at a fraction of the cost and with far less complexity.
- The staff, tenants or others at risk are issued simple Bluetooth-enabled badges, key-rings or wristbands
- When these devices come in close proximity to another such device, they record that information and regularly upload these “encounters” to a central database. This information is stored in a secure database that is searchable and auditable for historic patterns.
- Government agencies, corporate wellness and security officers, facilities managers and other officials responsible for curbing COVID-19 exposure and the health and well-being of the people in their facility can trace the past movements of people who subsequently test positive or who develop symptoms, alerting them and anyone they were in contact with to possible exposure and taking steps to curb the further spread of potentially lethal viral or bacteriological agents.
Relying on personal devices like smartphones creates vulnerabilities and inconsistencies that Microshare’s Universal Contact Tracing solution addresses. Personal devices are also akin to Trojan Horses in terms of cyber security. The Microshare solution avoids both problems and runs entirely on a network separate from sensitive corporate databases. When the stakes involve human lives, any vulnerability is one too many.