KERLINK (EPA:ALKLK) - Kerlink and Microshare Design a Contact-Tracing Solution To Help Suppress Spread of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Transparency directive : regulatory news

07/05/2020 08:00

Kerlink and Microshare Design a Contact-Tracing Solution  To Help Suppress
Spread of the Covid-19 Pandemic

Solution Leverages the Companies' Expertise in Indoor Asset Tracking and
Monitoring, Powered by LoRaWAN(r) and Without Smartphones or GPS Technology

PRESS RELEASE

Thorigné-Fouillard, France and Philadelphia, USA - May 7, 2020, 8:00 a.m. CET
- Kerlink (AKLK - FR0013156007), a specialist in solutions dedicated to the
Internet of Things (IoT), and Microshare, the leading data management solution
for the IoT era, today announced their collaboration in delivering a turnkey
solution to trace contacts proximity in the workplace to help to fight spread
of Covid-19.

Facing the Covid-19 pandemic, World Health Organization (WHO) officials
stressed the importance for countries to combine testing, isolation and tracing
of new cases to suppress the spread of the virus(1). Suppression is essential
for buying time to develop new medicines and new vaccines, to manufacture much-
needed equipment, and to design reactive solutions to prevent the spreading of
illnesses.

This crisis also reveals that personnel are both the most important and most
vulnerable assets of companies and industries, as well as public-service and
government agencies. Suppression is thus an especially key challenge during the
outbreak and the transition out of confinement phases for all businesses and
services. Private and public sector entities are torn between the imperative to
strictly follow locally personal hygiene and safety rules and their critical
challenge to maintain business continuity, while ensuring the safety of their
personnel.

There is wide agreement that effective, close monitoring - known as contact
tracing - is essential to identify people who came in contact with infected
people to guide proactive prevention and to follow up with the contacts
identified(2).

Factories, plants, warehouses, construction sites, mining and oil & gas sites,
prisons, barracks, schools, hospitals health-care and elder-care facilities are
many of the environments where smartphones and public apps are not a reliable
response to this crisis. Often, people within these facilities and sites either
are prohibited from using a smartphone, may not own one or simply refuse to use
one. Even those carrying smartphones on a regular basis may have disabled
geo-tracking to protect their privacy or deal with limited battery capacity.

Microshare and Kerlink have combined their deep experience in indoor asset
tracking within facilities and around ring-fenced properties to deliver a
cost-effective contact-tracing solution. Microshare's Universal

Contact Tracing(TM) solution is powered by Kerlink's brand-new Wanesy(TM) Wave
scanners, industrial-grade indoor and outdoor Wirnet iSerie LoRaWAN(r) gateways
and Wanesy(TM) Management Center core network and network management tools.
This turnkey solution can be deployed in weeks rather than months or years,
with no need to design new hardware, or install new complex networks or
intrusive data-management systems. This solution runs entirely on a network
separate from sensitive corporate databases and closes a loophole opened by
systems relying on smartphones.

(1) https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2020/03/
testing-tracing-backbone-who-coronavirus-wednesdays-briefing/
(2) Source: World Health Organization
https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/contact-tracing

Its use is very simple, secure and anonymized:

* Staff are issued simple and inexpensive autonomous Bluetooth-enabled badges,
  key-rings or wristbands with a unique ID. No Personally Identifiable
  Information (PII) is used and data transmitted and recorded is only based on
  device User Identifier (UID).

* When devices come in close proximity to each other, they scan and record each
  other's UID through an encrypted code and regularly upload these UIDs
  "encounters" to a central, secure, searchable and auditable database..

* Only duly enabled government agencies, corporate-wellness and security
  officers, facility managers or other officials responsible for mitigating
  Covid-19 exposure can then identify the wearer of the device, thanks to its
  unique UID, and trace previous movements of people who subsequently test
  positive or who develop symptoms.

Designed to be interoperative with standard interfaces and widely deployed
commercial data dashboards, Universal Contact Tracing(TM) ensures end-to-end
security, privacy and reliability for the delivery of critical information
where it's needed. The data it produces is secure, GDPR-compliant and delivered
through Microshare's patent-pending rules and sharing engine to only the
appropriate, designated people at the right time.

"Building on our existing Asset Zoning solution, which tracks the location of
items such as hospital beds and wheelchairs, Kerlink and Microshare developed
Fitbit-style wearable Bluetooth devices coupled with a non- invasive long-range
network. They can be used for workplace proximity tracing even where cellphones
aren't allowed," said Microshare cofounder and CEO Ron Rock. "We realized that
tracking employees inside a building wasn't dissimilar to tracking hospital
beds."

"In this difficult time for companies, health-care facilities, government
agencies and all their employees it is crucial for technology companies to help
mitigate the effects of Covid-19," said Stephane Dejean, Kerlink CMO. "The
Kerlink and Microshare solution helps workers to feel safe in their workplace
and protect their personal data. It also supports companies' determination to
efficiently and safely get back to business when government officials give them
the green light."

About Kerlink

Kerlink Group is a leading global provider of connectivity solutions for
designing, launching, and operating public & private Internet of Things
networks. Its comprehensive product portfolio includes industrial-grade network
equipment, best-of-breed network core, operations and management software,
value-added applications and expert professional services, backed by strong R&D
capabilities. Kerlink specializes in enabling future-proof intelligent IoT
connectivity for key verticals such as fleet management, transportation &
logistics, retail, asset tracking, and smart metering, as well as smart
agriculture & environment, and smart cities, buildings, and factories. More
than 120,000 Kerlink installations have been rolled out with more than 330
clients in 69 countries. Based in France, with subsidiaries in the US,
Singapore, India, and Japan, Kerlink is a founding and board member of the LoRa
Alliance(TM) and the uCIFI Alliance(TM). It is listed on Euronext Growth Paris
under the symbol ALKLK.

For more information, visit www.kerlink.com or follow us on Twitter
@kerlink_news.

About Microshare

Microshare(TM) is the leading data management solution for the IoT era.
Microshare leverages data across multiple platforms, providing actionable
insights with privacy, security, audit and confidentiality so that our clients
can save money, rationalize strategic spending decisions and create new data
sharing revenue streams.

www.microshare.io

                              Upcoming events
             Q2 revenue: 23 July 2020, after market close

                              www.kerlink.com

Microshare contact:
Michael Moran
mmoran@microshare.io
+1 201-264-5751

Financial press contact :
Actifin
Isabelle Dray
+33 (0) 1 56 88 11 29
idray@actifin.fr

Kerlink press & market analysts
contact :
Mahoney Lyle
Sarah-Lyle Dampoux
+33 (0) 6 74 93 23 47
sldampoux@mahoneylyle.com

Investor contact :
Actifin
Benjamin Lehari
+33 (0)1 56 88 11 25
blehari@actifin.fr

www.kerlink.com, fr.linkedin.com/company/kerlink
Twitter@kerlink_news,  YouTube: Kerlink

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KERLINK (EPA:ALKLK) - Kerlink and Microshare Design a Contact-Tracing Solution To Help Suppress Spread of the Covid-19 Pandemic

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