SITA selects Basis Technology to power contact tracing of infections crossing borders

As the world travels again, an airline industry-owned tech company develops a solution for contact tracers to quickly find, notify potentially exposed air travellers

Basis Technology announced that SITA — a software provider that is owned by 400 members of the air transport industry — has selected Rosette name matching for its contact tracing solution. Governments will be able to open borders and keep track of who came in contact with confirmed cases of COVID-19 while travelling.

SITA’s Intelligence and Targeting system lets a contact tracer find out whether any person newly diagnosed with COVID-19 travelled in the past 30 days. Displaying aeroplane seating charts to contact tracers, SITA identifies potentially exposed airline crews and passengers by quickly pinpointing travellers who booked tickets with, or sat in proximity to, a person diagnosed with COVID-19. Within minutes, contact tracers can notify those people via phone or email obtained from travel records.

The European CDC states, “The availability of passenger locator data, particularly for airline passengers, is extremely important for the success and effectiveness of contact tracing operations for communicable diseases.” The ECDC estimates up to seven hours of contact tracing are required for each case. This tool is designed to drastically reduce that time, enabling governments to reopen borders with the confidence that new cases can be quickly contained.

“We integrated Rosette name matching from Basis Technology into our SITA Intelligence and Targeting border management system a few years ago. It gave us better results out of the box and was quicker to deploy with a lower cost of ownership,” said Ricardo Letosa, Senior Product Manager at SITA. “There was no question we would use Rosette for contact tracing as well because you don’t check into a hospital with your passport number. When you have no common identifiers between health and travel records besides name and date of birth, you have to go with the best name matching you can get, and for SITA that is Rosette from Basis Technology.”

“We are thrilled to be part of SITA’s response to COVID-19. The airline industry has been hit hard, and we hope this software will help world governments reopen their borders and make air travellers feel safe again,” said Carl Hoffman, CEO of Basis Technology. “Contact tracing is an important tool to contain the spread of COVID-19 as countries reopen. It is vital that we give the contact tracers every possible tool to be successful.”

CAMBRIDGE, MASS., July 28, 2020