Contact tracing—identifying people who have been exposed to Covid-19—is an important part of stopping disease transmission and is a key element in opening up the economy. To this end, some governments, including the Canadian province of British Columbia, have mandated that restaurants and bars collect the names and contact information of patrons and retain this information for 30 days.
Many businesses are manually collecting this information at the door and storing it in file folders. Not only is such a low-tech approach inefficient, it also raises data privacy protection concerns, as well as the issue of inaccurate data collection.
Loop Insights Inc. (MTRX:TSX.V), a Vancouver-based technology company that provides artificial intelligence solutions to brick and mortar companies, has developed an automated contact tracing platform that supports the government-mandated collection of customer information.
Loop's Fobi device was developed originally to allow brick and mortar stores to collect data from their point of sales devices. But the company realized its capabilities were transferable in this new normal, as it provided a contactless, secure way to transfer basic personal information. Customers tap their phone at the entrance of an establishment and their contact information will be collected accurately and securely.
"Technology has no value unless it solves a fundamental issue," said Loop Insights CEO Rob Anson. "Covid-19 has created a major global health and economic problem. The demand and need for a secure and automated solution has never been greater. This clearly isn't the time to radically innovate, it is the time to instill confidence through a proven, secure, reliable and trusted solution."
With pen and paper or verbal collection methods, "you get inaccuracies in the data, just like I experienced when a restaurant hostess wrote down my name and cell phone number wrong. The need for accurate data is hugely important if we want contact tracing to be successful," Anson explained. "Plus there is latency in the protocol built around notification. It takes time for health departments to understand areas of infection based off of the information given from hospitals and restaurants. Sometimes, we are talking weeks in reaction time."
Loop's system solves these issues, and it starts with a universal wallet pass. "It's similar to the QR code you use when you check in for a flight. Like your boarding passes QR code, each Loop wallet pass is encrypted so all of your information is secured," Anson said. "After a one-touch on-boarding process, you would go to our SmarTap device connected to the host system and tap your phone; your name and cell phone number or email address now goes to a central data repository that is secured by Amazon Web Services."
"Our platform is built off Apple and Google, so it is familiar and easy to use. It also offers the power of the lockscreen. The minute your phone comes near the device, it automatically pulls up the wallet pass to your lockscreen so you can check in right away. Once an area of infection is determined, we can push real-time notifications to potentially affected individuals as well, through SMS, email or wallet pass," Anson said.
With the company's recent acceptance into Amazon Web Service's Partner Network, "the company's data security methods gain major credibility. Amazon Web Services is the global leader of PPI (Protected Personal Information) data storage," Anson said, emphasizing its importance: "when we're dealing with healthcare, privacy of data is number one."
Loop's automated contact tracing platform uses LTE connectivity that does not interact with on-premise WiFi networks. This ensures that the information transfer is highly secured and isn't able to be hacked. Data access also requires a permission-based login for the government.
"We've created a seamless experience for the customer, we've automated a very laborious process for the restaurant front staff, and, of course, we've removed all the risk and liability from not only the government but from the restaurant as well. After 30 days, or whatever period the local agency mandates, we can delete all of the components required by the government's rules and regulations," Anson shared.
"We're not reinventing the wheel here," Anson concluded. "We're working with partners and merging our technologies to provide a complete turnkey solution. Out of the box, our system can be deployed at huge scale in a very timely fashion. The Fobi device is what powers it all up through the cloud application, and then applies the artificial intelligence for modeling, reporting, forecasting and insights."
Loop Insights has around 65 million shares issued, and nearly 86 million fully diluted.
Technical analyst Clive Maund follows Loop Insights on CliveMaund.com. On June 29, the analyst wrote, the "candle is a sign that the bottom is in and that the stock should now proceed to break out of the short-term chart shown on our 3-month chart and advance. The fundamentals for the company continue to be favorable. We therefore stay long and this is a good point for anyone who doesn't already own the stock to take a position."
Disclosure:
1) Patrice Fusillo compiled this article for Streetwise Reports LLC and provides services to Streetwise Reports as an employee. She or members of her household own securities of the following companies mentioned in the article: None. She or members of her household are paid by the following companies mentioned in this article: None.
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