Covid19: Self-Isolation Rather than Quarantine – Thanks to Face Recognition

The Slovak government has given its citizens returning from abroad an alternative to compulsory quarantine in state-run facilities, allowing them instead to have a so-called smart quarantine. To make sure people are self-isolating at their place of choice, Innovatrics has provided its biometric identification solution to the state.

Together with the programming team of the Slovak location software pioneer, Sygic, the app is capable of checking whether a person adheres to the ordered quarantine. “We felt it is our responsibility to provide our remote identification solution to help during the pandemic. Already used in banks and telecoms around the world, it’s extremely accurate, and most importantly, very user-friendly. We believe it will have a positive impact on all those required to go into quarantine,” explains Daniel Ferak, Innovatrics Head of Product Development.

All the biometric data stays on the user device, only a confirmation of successful identity checks is transferred to the state servers. With the new eQuarantine app, Slovakia is joining only a handful of countries that use smart technologies for making mandatory quarantine more bearable. Similar solutions have so far been deployed in India and Poland.

Before entering the country from abroad, repatriates should register on the government website. Then the app scans their ID, takes a selfie and does a simple liveness check to prove their identity. After being checked at the border, the app navigates the user via the shortest route to the chosen quarantine destination. During the mandated stay at home, the notification randomly asks the user each day to identify themself with a selfie and a liveness check, while the location services confirm the place of stay.

The Innovatrics solution utilizes extremely accurate face recognition, automated reading of IDs and a liveness check. All of them are based on convoluted deep neural networks that have been trained for specific purposes. All the necessary checks can be done on-device even on low-end smartphones. The face recognition algorithms are among the top performers in regular comparisons carried out by the US-based National Institute of Standards and Technology.

Innovatrics is Slovak-based provider of multi-modal biometric solutions and its algorithms rank consistently among the fastest and most accurate in fingerprint and face recognition. Its solutions are used in more than 70 countries all over the world.