Consolacion town has application to monitor movements of residents while under GCQ

A volunteer dressed as a Stormtrooper checks the temperature of a motorist in a checkpoint in Consolacion town. | photo courtesy of Star Wars Cebu

CEBU CITY, Philippines — Consolacion, a town in northern Cebu, is using technology to keep track of the movements of the residents now that they are under the general community quarantine (GCQ).

Town Mayor Joannes Alegado said that an artificial intelligence (AI)-based application called Conan is utilized by the municipal government to form a database of all residents leaving and entering the town.

He said since the municipality of Consolacion has been placed under GCQ, more residents, especially workers, are expected to leave their homes. The application would help monitor the residents location’s for a particular day.

Quarantine passes, which contain QR codes, are scanned every time the holder goes through checkpoints, which would be downloaded to the database, forming a catalog of the movement of the residents.

Through Conan’s location logger, the mayor noted that the database would help in the contact tracing of positive COVID-19 patients.

Alegado also urged workers and business owners to get a worker’s permit or authority to operate, respectively, which would also be scanned at the checkpoints using the Conan application.

The Conan automated chat assistant also provides quick responses to queries about the coronavirus 2019 disease as well as updates from the local government.

Consolacion residents may send their queries to m.me/LGUConsolacionCOVID19ai regarding the Conan application. /bmjo