CLEAR Biometric ID Launches COVID Screening For Businesses

CLEAR, a biometric ID company, is eyeing a new way to help companies scan for the coronavirus as employees eventually return to work.

The program, called Health Pass by CLEAR, will let users download the CLEAR app and verify their identity with facial recognition. Then they’d take a selfie and answer a quiz on coronavirus symptoms as they relate to their daily lives. With that, CLEAR wants to link health results to one’s digital identity in the future.

After that, any time they enter a business with Health Pass installed, the results of a coronavirus test would allow them to either be accepted to enter or rejected.

The test would incorporate a temperature check, and users would be able to identify via a selfie or a QR code.

CLEAR is also working with partners across the country, among them the Las Vegas COVID-19 recovery task force and others like restaurateur Danny Meyer and the New York Mets.

The company wants to institute a way to issue digital certificates to people who have recovered from the virus, though this may be difficult right now as medical professionals aren’t sure if people who’ve recovered can be infected again or not.

The strategy, despite its potential to help the country move into a new post-pandemic phase of life, also comes with a thorn bush of risks. There’s no way to tell if people will tell the truth on the quizzes, particularly if it means the difference between going back to work or not.

Privacy concerns could abound, though the people developing the software say the information connected to one’s digital identity would never be shared with the businesses in question. But despite the assertion that CLEAR’s technology is voluntary, it’s unknown if it would stay that way as businesses begin to mandate temperature checks.

And the U.S. is generally lagging on the amount of coronavirus testing actually going on thus far.

But the strategy could help people slowly start to re-enter public life, alleviating fears of the virus by helping to track cases more easily.