01/19/2021 – Scan in/out program enables public health authority contact tracers to provide timely notification to parents, teachers and staff in the event of COVID-19 exposure
January 14, 2021 – Hillsboro, Ore. A local technology company is ready to help Oregon’s K-12 schools safely reopen through an innovative digital contact tracing enablement program called Embrace the Trace™.
Fortior Solutions launched its program in 2020 during the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic. The patent pending program enables public health authority contact tracers to provide timely notification and information to individuals who may have been exposed to COVID-19 through close contact with an infected person.
With Oregon schools preparing to resume in-person instruction, the company says this is the optimal time for them to implement the Embrace the Trace program.
Jim Robell, the company’s president and CEO, explained that the company will coordinate with schools to electronically assign a unique QR code to each student, teacher and staff member. The QR code is scanned at entry, exit and other key school locations using the company’s proprietary Embrace the Trace™ app. Individuals do not need a cell phone or other mobile device to use their QR code.
If someone at the school is diagnosed with COVID-19 and is referred to a public health authority contact tracer, Fortior Solutions can provide the contact tracer with a program QR code scan activity report. The report contains the dates, times and locations of the person’s scans as well as the scan data of the person’s potential “contacts” – other students, teachers and staff members who scanned in or out in the same timeframe and locations. The contact tracer uses this digital information to notify potential contacts that they may have been exposed.
Robell said individual confidentiality and privacy is a top priority of the program. Fortior Solutions collects only minimal information, as required by schools, of each individual when they sign up. He pointed out that the program does not use cell phone tracking, WiFi, GPS, LTE, Bluetooth, RFID or other overly intrusive technologies to monitor individuals’ every move. Mr. Robell also said the company deletes QR code scan activity information from its system on a rolling basis after 60 days unless schools require a different period.
He said the program also relieves schools of the burden of manually tracking who has been where, and when, throughout the school day. “Students come to school to learn, teachers to teach, and staff members to support the educational environment,” Robell said. “The pandemic complicates this effort tremendously. Our program can help boost the confidence of everyone to get back to school as safely as possible.”
Fortior Solutions is a longtime trusted provider of identity solutions to the military, government and critical infrastructure. Robell said when the COVID-19 pandemic began last year, the company knew it was their community responsibility to leverage their unique expertise to develop a privacy focused solution to help schools, universities, businesses, work sites, stores, restaurants, salons, health care facilities, sports venues, faith-based organizations and other gathering places reopen while reducing the spread of COVID-19.
Mr. Robell said the company also is able to coordinate onsite COVID-19 testing to provide schools with a complete, integrated contact tracing and testing solution.
About Fortior Solutions:
Fortior Solutions is the market leader in high-assurance identity solutions used by the government and critical infrastructure. The company offers innovative technology programs for access control and pandemic and emergency response. In addition to Fortior Solutions’ COVID-19 contact tracing solution, the company provides end-to-end trusted identity programs offering full credential lifecycle management through the combination of registration, identity proofing, verification, background screening, credentialing and identity authentication for government, critical infrastructure, and individuals including contractors, vendors and other authorized personnel. Fortior Solutions is headquartered in Hillsboro, OR, and has been delivering trusted identity solutions to customers since November, 2001.
For further information please contact Amber Bond, Vice President, at abond@fortiorsolutions.com.