Proximity & Contact Tracing for small businesses and organisations
Many of us have been to restaurants and other places where someone pounces on you with a clipboard asking for your contact details. You hurriedly fill it in hoping your handwriting will be eligible and that you’ve remembered your mobile number correctly.
From the point of view of businesses, they’ve been left to cope with managing hordes of new customer data with little notice and even less guidance and training. This ‘new normal’ in a coronavirus world is throwing up some important challenges for workplaces, schools, venues and any organisations where people congregate. However, for businesses large and small, the answer to Covid compliancy may lie in a digital solution.
Would you be able to meet your obligation to provide details of everyone who had been on your premises in the previous 21 days? Are you succeeding in keeping your spaces uncrowded?
Proximity and contact tracing are just one of the challenges faced by schools, organisations and workplaces re-opening after the UK lockdown. Implementing effective Covid-secure measures means that customers and staff have more confidence – and that the economy stays opens.
Making your premises Covid-secure reassures customers, clients and all others who visit your site – this includes:
- Maintaining a safe working environment e.g. regular cleaning of premises, increased cleaning of common touchpoints
- Implementing social distancing guidelines e.g. guiding customers to queue 2m apart, introducing one-way systems for footfall, reducing pinch-points for people moving around the premises
- Collecting contact tracing data so that the right people can be alerted when Covid-positive cases identified.
What is contact tracing?
A key part of keeping the economy and education open post-lockdown is to contain infection through track and trace. Since July the UK government has asked organisations to keep a temporary record of customers and visitors for 21 days and in a way that assists requests for that data if needed subsequently. In fact businesses have been told recently that they need to do a better job of this.
The guidance applies to a variety of sectors, especially those where customers and visitors spend a long time in one place or may come into contact with many different people.
Many businesses started off collecting customer and visitor data manually. Whatever the size of business this is proving time-consuming and cumbersome. On top of this, passing around equipment to collect contact details can be unhygienic and also increase risk. It’s not surprising that business-owners and managers of venues and other organisations have started to turn to digital solutions.
How does digital contact tracing work?
Digital proximity and contact tracing makes use of Bluetooth and wifi. It works by tracking the Bluetooth ID of a device to record movements and interactions. This can be in the form of a mobile device or token. The system uses AI driven WIFI and Bluetooth Low Energy technology to communicate with devices or tokens of customers and employees. It can then use its analytics technology to trace, map and alert. It can simply be installed onto existing wifi or as a new installation.
Some benefits of digital contact tracing
Proximity & contact tracing (PCT) has great benefits over manual data collection:
- More efficient – digital PCT increases the capacity of your business to collect contact data by reducing the burden of manual collection. Data can be captured more accurately and quickly.
- More convenient – people can be contacted more quickly and easily if the need arises
- More protective – the detailed proximity information provided helps manage crowding and identify expose to risk.
- Peace of mind – a digital system gets the job done without worries about breaching data protection rules such as GDPR.
A Short History of Contact Tracing
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What’s stopping you from choosing a digital proximity and contact tracing system?
With so many competing priorities, it understandable that companies don’t have time to investigate all their options. From organising remote working to getting your ICT organised the post-lockdown world has got busy. However, keeping your staff and customers safe while complying with government guidelines are important challenges which should be at the top of any businesses’ agenda at the moment. Customers and visitors who feel safe and confident are more likely to return.
- I’ve already got paper systems for data collection – paper systems can be cumbersome, inaccurate and at risk of loss or data breach. As time goes by your business may be overwhelmed by unmanageable paper records.
- Isn’t there a national app in development? – You may have heard about the long and vexed claims about various apps in development. However, while these are still beyond reach and may not fulfil all the jobs which businesses and organisations are being asked to do, it’s better to take action now. In addition, a PCT does much more than contact tracing alone – it includes Journey Mapping and Congestion Alerting too.
- I wouldn’t know how to get PCT up and running – 360ict can take care of this for you. We provide full installation and maintenance and will give you affordable rates.
360ict’s PCT is an intelligent and clean technology which keeps your customers, staff and visitors safe. The hassle-free system is an excellent solution for workplaces which need to maintain contact tracing and other Covid-secure measures.
