Scottish Company Launches Facial Recognition And Thermal Imaging For Care Homes
- Containment strategies through an attendance and access system with zero contact and temperature measurement can be a key to avoiding easy spread of Covid-19 across the Care and Nursing Home Communities
Edinburgh 17th July 2020; A Scottish company has unveiled an attendance ‘track and trace system’ that uses facial recognition and thermal imaging to detect people with high temperatures and infection which will mean better safeguarding of Care Home staff and patients against Covid-19 infection
The technology was developed by Reddy Punna, the CEO of Edinburgh-based enterprise technology specialist Purview Services and himself a Covid-19 survivor, having been diagnosed the virus on a business trip to India.
The system is capable of scanning 30 people per second and will indicate those at higher risk of Covid-19 infection, so that they are swiftly detected and contained as they enter the Care Home.
Currently unable to return to Scotland, Reddy focused on developing the facial recognition and thermal imaging technology whilst in India.
He comments;
“Immediate protection from The Covid-19 pandemic requires compliance with test, trace isolate and protection strategies and we’ve done this through the development of our optical attendance and access system. The facial recognition and thermal imaging system can detect people’s temperature, the presence of a face mask and social distancing as they walk past the scanning technology at a rate of up to 30 per second and within a range field depth of 9 metres.
Those entering a Care Home with a raised temperature can be identified and then diverted to be helped by staff to stop any potential spread of Covid-19. Containment through an attendance and access system with zero contact and temperature measurement can be a key to avoiding easy spread of the virus that can take place with a biometric access system.”
Purview’s Facial Recognition and Thermal Imaging technology allows the system to check and enable access (e.g. light goes green from red). For example, if there is a temperature alert on the system, a person can be re-checked with handheld thermal imaging.
The reading can then be conveyed to the individual and they would then be advised accordingly. The reading can also trigger the tracing process to find who the identified person has been in contact with.
The strategy is to have free flowing footfall with access control , allowing people to move without congestion and being hampered by unnecessary delay.
With little sign of stability in the rise of Covid-19 infection around the world, the public needs assurance that risk of infection in crowd management can be completely minimised and controlled immediately when a case is flagged by the facial recognition and thermal imaging software.
As measures are being gradually relaxed, the public is mindful that the spread of Covid-19 is yet to be fully contained and until there is a wholesale decrease in infection rates, facial recognition and thermal imaging will give assurances to businesses that this type of technology can further reduce infection rates.
