Starting at midnight on March 19, anyone entering Hong Kong was required to wear a government-issued wristband that tracked their whereabouts, making sure they were following the region’s strict 14-day quarantine rules for new arrivals.

Many viewed the bracelets—which pair with an app on the wearer’s cell phone—as an extreme example of government intervention and a threat to individuals’ privacy. But Wayne Lloyd, CEO of Vancouver-based Blockchain Holdings, was convinced they would become a must-have accessory in the global fight to gain control of COVID-19. 

Days after Hong Kong began using the wearables, Lloyd tendered an offer to buy TraceSafe, the company behind the technology. For US$1.6 million, the Nevada-based firm agreed to the acquisition, giving Blockchain Holdings full control of the firm’s assets, including intellectual property and employees.

Lloyd hopes the deal will fast-track Blockchain’s growth. Founded in 2017, the firm was originally focused on analyzing and aggregating cryptocurrency data sets as a service for investors, but had been open to other opportunities in tech. Having worked with some of the TraceSafe engineers on Blockchain’s technology in the past, “we had a front-row seat when they had their big breakout in Hong Kong,” said Lloyd. “We saw the product start lifting off and decided to partner up so we could grow that business and really succeed.”   

The deal has so far paid off for Blockchain. By April, Hong Kong was attracting international praise for containing the coronavirus better than nearly anywhere else in the world, thanks in large part to its strict contact-tracing measures. The success triggered a flurry of interest in TraceSafe from other governments, and from investors. Blockchain Holdings has since raised $5.6 million for TraceSafe through two funding rounds; the latter was a $4-million private placement led by Canaccord Genuity. Now, the newly Canadian firm is positioning itself as an essential resource for companies trying to return to the workplace safely. 

“It’s really about business-continuity risk,” said Lloyd. “These companies are looking forward and saying, ‘We don’t want to have to shut that down again; we also don’t want to sacrifice worker safety and keep people wondering if they’re going to come in contact with someone who’s been infected.’”

Since the acquisition, the firm has launched more than 20 pilot programs with corporate partners to test its technology in the workplace. One is with Singapore-based construction giant Boustead Projects, which is using TraceSafe’s technology to comply with new industry regulations requiring firms in the city-state to have tech-based contact tracing systems in place before fully reopening. The firm is also working with the Toronto Wolfpack Rugby team on how to use its technology for crowd management when games resume. 

Along with Hong Kong, TraceSafe has a government contract in Singapore, and Lloyd said it’s in the bidding process for several other government deals. The firm is also working with universities in the U.S. and U.K. as well as large factory operators, the names of which Lloyd declined to disclose. “Many of them are forward-looking businesses that can’t afford to be knocked offline due to their place in the supply chain or the essential nature of their service,” he said.

The company’s biggest growth markets are Southeast Asia, particularly for its quarantine-management tool for governments. “North America’s not big on doing the quarantine bracelets—it’s just not really culturally a fit there as far as the government-regulated bans go,” said Lloyd. “Where we have seen uptake is in corporate or enterprise contact tracing.”

Lloyd is confident the trend will help him grow a new wearables business in Vancouver. Blockchain legally changed its name to TraceSafe after the acquisition (though it hasn’t wound down its crypto business), and added 85 employees to its workforce, then fewer than 10 people, through the deal. While its workers are spread out between offices in Singapore; India; Laguna Beach, Calif.; and Vancouver, Lloyd is focusing on growing the business in the Canadian city. “We’re using the Vancouver office as headquarters for product development and business development and we plan to massively grow our team here,” said the CEO.

Risa Boerner, a Philadelphia-based lawyer focused on data security and workplace privacy, expects a significant rise in employers using wearables for contact tracing—as long as they can convince workers that their privacy is being protected in the process. “Whenever you look at the collection of biometric information, there’s a concern about storage of the data and making sure it’s secure,” said Boerner, who’s been inundated with questions from employers about how to legally and effectively use wearables for COVID-19 contact tracing. “You can reduce the privacy risks and concerns if all you’re doing is tracking location within the workplace and issuing a notification,” she said. “What becomes tricky is if more biometric data is being collected.” For example, Boerner said she’s seeing a number of employers testing workers’ temperatures at the start of a shift and coupling that information with facial recognition to potentially identify workers who are running a fever. Those systems are more vulnerable to abuses by those with access to the data as well as by potential hackers, she said.

One of TraceSafe’s major marketing features is that its technology uses privacy-by-design principles. Practically speaking, that means a TraceSafe device—which could be a wristband or a tag clipped onto a vest or employee ID card—doesn’t collect any identifiable information about the person wearing it, like their location or name. Instead it collects data about its proximal location to other devices. Only in the event that someone contracts the virus would an employer identify and notify the people whose devices came in contact with one associated with the infected person. “You effectively have two separate databases,” said Lloyd, one that stores employees’ names and their associated tags, and another that stores data on how the tags move around the office or factory.

Core to the technology’s privacy is that it doesn’t need to be linked to an app to operate, allowing it to be decoupled from a mobile device, a new feature TraceSafe launched after the acquisition based on client feedback.

Lloyd suggests people have a general aversion to being traced by an app on your phone, pointing to the relatively low download rates for exposure-notification apps released by governments worldwide. “Everyone views their cellphone as a piece of their personal private life and they don’t want apps on their phone with the ability to track or share information,” said Lloyd. “There’s a convenience factor of having an app on your phone, but it also opens up a huge can of worms when it comes to privacy, and people are becoming more and more wary of that.”

Boerner predicts employers may see better adoption rates for exposure-notification tech than governments. “If employees understand what the device is doing, what data is and is not being collected, who has access to it, they’re more likely to accept it than if it’s just given to them.”