As COVID-19 Rages, Intel Invests in Health-Check Kiosk Provider
Truyo, which builds kiosks that scan employees for indications of COVID-19 infections in a way that complies with privacy mandates, announced that Intel has made an undisclosed material investment in the company.
As more employees prepare to return to the workplace, more organizations are wrestling with privacy issues that result from scanning employees for indications of an infection. Truyo, an arm of IntraEdge Company, which develops custom software and has longstanding ties to Intel, created a kiosk that not only scans employees but also makes those results readily available to employees or anyone else who visited that location via a URL link that is easily shared.
Truyo president Dan Clarke said currently only 40 organizations are employing Truyo Privacy Platform and Health-Check Management Solutions based Intel SGX processors; however, healthcare data on more than a billion individuals has already been collected. Priced starting at $7,950, the platforms are available from Truyo or via the Intel Market Ready Solution program.
The Truyo platforms started as a project to address General Data Protection Rule (GDPR) requirements for physical security systems, which Clarke said quickly pivoted to become a health-check system once the pandemic started.
The Truyo platforms make it possible for individuals to easily see what data has been collected, much of which is likely destined to be stored in any number of healthcare applications, Clarke noted.
Truyo competes in an increasingly crowded health-check sector that is expected to grow significantly. The challenge is that not all these platforms record vital signs such as temperature with the same level of precision, he said, noting that creates the opportunity for a lot of unnecessary consternation when an individual is quarantined because of a false positive.
Health-check systems also collect a lot of potentially sensitive data that cybersecurity teams will be asked to secure. It’s now only a matter of time before cybercriminals attempt to steal healthcare data that could command a premium on the Dark Web. In general, organizations will have to walk a fine line between privacy mandates that require transparency and the need to ensure personal data is secure.
In the meantime, it’s now only a matter of time before health-check systems are popping up all over. Not only are offices going to deploy them to better ensure safety, but airports, hotels, stadiums and theaters soon may have one or more. It’s not clear how quickly individuals will be able to move through those kiosks, so the wait to get into any building might increase. However, each kiosk deployed to speed up that process will also create yet another attack surface that needs to be defended.
