Germany’s RTL features Microshare’s contact tracing wearables
COLOGNE, Germany – German broadcaster RTL aired a seven-minute feature describing how Microshare’s Universal Contact Tracing wearables helped protect employees at the manufacturing firm Wichelhaus & Co. from a major COVID-19 outbreak. View the video here
The piece, broadcast on August 23, details how the Microshare wearables deployed in the company’s facility in Ratingen outside Düsseldorf creates an anonymous database of contact events to allow the company to identify anyone who might have been exposed to the virus if someone reports symptoms.
“It is interesting to see, that especially here in the break room most of the contact events happen,” remarks Microshare Senior Sales Executive Dennis Balgheim on the broadcast. “That means, from the data of the first four days, this would be a very effective place to potentially divide people into different groups that can use the social space at different times.”
The Wichelhaus deployment last spring was implemented in partnership with a local Microshare reseller, Bimanu, which handled the development of the contact tracing dashboard visualization. Microshare’s contact tracing solution, which has previously been featured on the front pages of the Financial Times and The New York Times, has been deployed globally in 22 countries with such clients as Glaxo-SmithKline, Rent-A-Center and dozens of nursing homes and other healthcare facilities.
Designed for occupant safety and user consent, Microshare’s Universal Contact Tracing (UCT) solution is based on wearables, closing the loopholes and privacy problems of the smartphone based approach. UCT is an integral part of Microshare’s EverSmart Smart Facilities solutions and the Philadelphia-based firm’s efforts to help clients navigate the “Return-to-Work” moment and adapt to the coming post-pandemic world.
“Microshare’s Universal Contact Tracing is easy to use and extremely valuable in identifying people when the exposed person doesn’t remember the contact event,”
said Lynn Jenkins, Director of Human Resources, Rent-a-Center.
View the animation below to learn more about Universal Contact Tracing wearables.
Universal Contact Tracing has succeeded largely because it does not collect Personally Identifiable Information (PII), a major concern of privacy groups. Wearables are deployed during working hours and left at the worksite when the day is done. The wearables solution:
- Traces contact anonymously between facility occupants through badges, wristbands and keyrings
- Avoids vulnerability of smartphone approach where data can be disabled, batteries go dead or people simply not own them
- Provides implicit consent when wearable is distributed and accepted
- Operates on multi-year battery life Bluetooth beacons
- Runs on LoRaWAN gateways separate from proprietary networks, avoiding serious security problems associated with WiFi and other cellphone data technologies
