Canada’s new mandatory Covid-19 hotel stopover is outdated — There’s a better solution.
It’s March 1, 2021. Last week, nearly one year after COVID-19 was declared a global pandemic, Canada’s new hybrid home/hotel quarantine program for international travelers went into effect. Essentially, new arrivals are put into hotel quarantine at their own expense, and after three days they’re sent home to continue the rest of the compulsory 14-day quarantine.
This new federal law has sparked frustration and raised eyebrows. Travelers are required to pay up to $2,000 out of pocket for their three-day hotel stay (an amount that, in many cases, exceeds the cost of their travel and is unaffordable for some Canadians). What’s more, the government is running the hotel reservation phone lines, and many callers report waiting up to 14 hours to get through. Many people, travelers and non-travelers alike, are questioning the logic of quarantining in a hotel rather than the comfort and safety of their own homes, especially for those that live alone or in the same household as their travel companions.
The stakes are high, and options for those entering Canada are nonexistent. Travelers face steep penalties for sneaking out of their hotels. Maximum penalties include a fine of up to $750,000 and/or imprisonment for six months. And once travelers are released from the hotel to quarantine at home, enforcement is done the old-fashioned, expensive way: private security firms and government officials will be knocking on their doors and calling them to check on their whereabouts.
Although well intentioned, this federal program is far from cost-effective, and it may prove risky: quarantining in close quarters could increase travellers’ risk of infection and community spread.
There has to be a better way.
Even though the COVID-19 virus has been around for just about a year, technologies that balance community health and privacy rights have been long in the making.
In 2016, hospital managers of the maternity wards in County Manukau District in New Zealand were looking for a reliable infant tracking solution after a slate of troubling infant abduction cases. Our own CEO of TraceSafe Technologies, Dr. Dennis Kwan, worked with the maternity team to develop unobtrusive wristbands together with complete infrastructure for tracking all newborn infants. Doctors and hospital staff could check a dashboard to see, in real-time, where an infant was on the ward. Trespasses outside the safe confines of the maternity wards would trigger instant alerts to nursing staff, who would receive notifications through their mobile phones. They could opt to take action, escalate it to security staff, all via the mobile app. Any tampering or removal of the wristband would also trigger alerts. The wristbands are low-cost and disposable to be maintenance-free, and thus adding minimal workload to the nursing staff. The system has been fully operational in four hospitals, including the largest Middlemore Hospital, for the past 4 years. There was another perk of the system, too: asset tracking tags were integrated into the system and placed on hospital equipment, making critical machinery easily traceable.
In 2020, that same technology used to track arguably the most precious assets - infants - was quickly and seamlessly adapted to the quarantine needs of some of the world’s most privacy-conscious national governments, enterprise and tourism clients. TraceSafe, a Canadian technology firm, specializes in high-quality, low cost quarantine management solutions that give travelers flexibility. Happy travelers = more compliance.
Following international success, TraceSafe’s technology has also been proven here in Canada at the World Junior Hockey Championships in Edmonton this year. The innovative technology was embedded in the event credentials of all teams, event staff, and media. The early detection of infections in eight German and two Swedish players led to swift and targeted isolation measures and kept the rest of the IIHF tournament bubble intact.
Flexibility breeds compliance
If Canada is looking for an alternative to the current hybrid hotel/home quarantine program, they would do well to explore solutions like TraceSafe. Travelers could choose from a multitude of premium form factors, like wristbands, lanyards, tags and clips. They could choose from a hotel quarantine, or a home quarantine. Wouldn’t it at least be nice to have the choice?.
Addressing privacy concerns
Quarantine management, tracking apps, government wearables: it can all start to sound a little Orwellian. But most international travelers understand that the privilege of traveling during a pandemic entails a few compromises, including quarantine to maintain community health.
Any government looking for a privacy-centric technological solution to quarantine management should look for technologies that are built on the Privacy by Design framework, and those that align with the 10 Privacy Principles of PIPEDA.
In accordance with Principle 4 of the 10 Privacy Principles, TraceSafe only collects the minimum amount of information necessary to ensure quarantine management. The information collected includes:
- A traveler’s name or a unique, pseudonymous identifier (we recommend the latter, as it is more privacy-preserving)
- The location (latitude and longitude) of where the traveler is expected to quarantine (for example, a hotel).
- The location (latitude and longitude) at regular intervals of time to check if the traveler is quarantining during his/her quarantine period.
That’s it. No other information from a user’s device is collected.
An effective community health solution
When it comes to the community health of Canadians, a better, and proven quarantine option already exists. It’s a Canadian-grown technology solution that provides travelers more flexibility, while simultaneously ensuring more compliance and safety. If the federal government is serious about preventing the spread of new variants, it might want to consider alternatives to its current plan.
