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Why QR codes are having a moment: How the pandemic created a surge of interest in a 25-year-old technology

Jan 10, 2022 , , , , by shlf

It may not be the first thing that leaps to mind, but among many other things, the year 2020 has been the year of the QR code.

QR codes aren’t new. In fact, they’ve been around for more than 25 years. But this year, they seem to be everywhere: on restaurant patio tables to access online menus, on doors to help with contact tracing, and in businesses for contactless payment. You’ll find them in your Toronto Star as well: codes you can scan to access exclusive online data.

Here’s how QR codes work, and why the COVID-19 pandemic set the stage for widespread use of this technology.

A QR code, or “quick response code,” is the next generation of the barcode. It encodes information horizontally and vertically, instead of just horizontally, making it capable of containing a lot more information.

It can also be read quickly, hence the name, and set off certain actions, such as redirecting the user to a website. This makes a QR code much more versatile than a regular barcode.

Richard Hyatt, co-founder and CEO of Toronto-based startup Candr, said its QR codes come in varying complexities. Many include redundancies, meaning the same information is encoded into the image more than once, so that if the QR code is partially damaged, it can still be scanned.

“Because you can put more data into that QR code, you can do some fancy things,” Hyatt said.

The QR code was invented in 1994 by Japanese engineer Hara Masahiro to track vehicles during the manufacturing process. (The term “QR Code” is trademarked by the company Denso Wave.) Instead of a simple barcode, the QR code was designed to hold a lot more information to streamline the process of scanning and tracking items.

Masahiro has said that the black-and-white pattern was inspired by the board game Go, which uses black-and-white playing pieces on a grid-marked board.

Since its invention, uses for the QR code have expanded into marketing and shopping. While smartphone users initially needed a third-party app to scan the codes, many Android and iPhone smartphones can now scan the codes via built-in camera apps.

QR codes have had a few resurgences over the years — remember Snapcodes, the personalized codes made by Snapchat to make adding friends easier? Snapchat’s CEO was inspired by seeing WeChat users in China scanning QR codes, according to a 2017 article in Wired.

If your smartphone has the capability, simply open the camera app and hold your phone up to the QR code. The app should prompt you to open whatever link the QR code is directing you to, whether it’s a restaurant menu or a contact tracing form.

If your smartphone’s camera app doesn’t have this capability, there are many third-party QR scanning apps that can be downloaded to perform the function.

Because of their versatility, QR codes are useful for a number of functions related to slowing the spread of COVID-19, said Konesh Thurairasah, co-founder and COO of Safe Check-IN, a tool to help businesses comply with contact tracing, among other things.

Not only can they direct a client to a menu or a contact tracing form, they can help business owners track how many people are in their store to avoid breaking pandemic restrictions.

When Thurairasah and his co-founder decided to make a contactless option for contact tracing and more, QR codes immediately popped into their heads, because of their versatility and also their cost-effectiveness, he said.

Since launching their Milton, Ont.-based startup around three months ago, interest has grown. Sign-ups doubled last month over the previous month and users are showing interest in an increasing array of features, Thurairasah said.

Kevin Derbyshire, co-founder and president of Toronto-based startup Candr, said its digital service was being developed to help companies connect with customers before COVID-19 using QR codes. Then, in the early days of the pandemic, a friend in the restaurant industry mentioned that they were collecting contact tracing details using pen and paper.

Derbyshire and Hyatt thought there must be a better way — and immediately thought of using Candr’s QR codes to improve the contact tracing process.

First, it’s more hygienic — there’s no shared pen or paper. Second, it’s more secure — nobody can access other people’s contact information such as by taking a photo of the sign-up sheet. And third, they could add new functionalities — for example, clients can take a COVID-19 symptom questionnaire, view a restaurant’s menu, and browse promotions, all through one QR code.

The process also eliminates errors caused by misheard names or messy handwriting.

Since the service launched in May, Derbyshire said they have had a “dramatic rise” in sign-ups, in Canada and outside the country. Many clients are restaurants, he said.

“It’s taken off,” said Derbyshire. “What used to be something that I would consider an inventory management tool on floors in large warehouses in the ’90s (is now) on tables of fine dining.”

You’ll find QR codes taped to the tables at your favourite restaurants — a contactless way to read the menu. QR codes are also being used at banks and other institutions to create a digital lineup.

Recently, Toronto company Scarboro Music put QR codes up on its display window so customers could virtually shop while the store is closed due to the current COVID-19 lockdown.

Pre-COVID-19, QR codes were used as an electronic ticket for concerts and shows (remember those?). The QR code in that confirmation email was proof of payment.

Companies are using them more often now for contactless payment, even digital payment giant PayPal. In November, Calgary-based payment company Helcim launched QR codes for restaurants and other small businesses.

Helcim founder and CEO Nick Beique said the QR codes help restaurants facilitate menus and online orders. Other businesses such as fitness studios are using them for easy registration, and the Toronto Star, noticing a resurgence in interest from marketers, recently added the procurement of QR codes for advertisers as a new service.

Beique thinks the increased use of QR codes to access menus in 2020 helped familiarize people in North America with the technology that other countries adopted years ago, and it’s leading to more creative uses.

“I think that the people removing the physical menus and (using) QR codes is really what has taught an entire population how to use them,” he said.

Thurairasah said some Safe Check-IN clients use QR codes to schedule and check-in visitors at care homes or hotels.

He predicts QR code usage will continue to rise in 2021 as businesses look for easier ways to comply with pandemic restrictions.

Hyatt agreed.

“The QR code’s here to stay.”

Rosa Saba is a Calgary-based business reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter:

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Thorncliffe Park Public School, first site of Ontario’s asymptomatic school testing, closes as cases climb

Oct 6, 2021 , , , , by shlf

The Toronto school that’s the first site of the province’s voluntary mass asymptomatic testing program, has closed as cases climb.

East York’s Thorncliffe Park Public School is dismissing all students until at least Dec. 9, wrote principal Jeff Crane in a letter to parents and guardians on Thursday. Students and staff will not be allowed to enter the building until at least that date.

“As you know, Toronto Public Health (TPH) is continuing to investigate the 26 COVID-19 cases at the school. To allow them time to finish their investigation and to perform additional voluntary COVID-19 testing, they have advised that, based on the current situation, all students and staff at the school be dismissed,” he wrote.

The move to close comes after three teachers walked off the job Thursday. Jennifer Brown, president of the Elementary Teachers of Toronto said almost half the student body at the school is now in isolation. With 24 students and two staff members testing positive, everyone is “walking on egg shells,” she said.

The school, near Don Valley Parkway and Millwood Road, is in a neighbourhood that’s been hard hit by . Asymptomatic testing was completed Monday, with more than 500 kids tested, out of a student body of 750. The province announced in the COVID hot spots of Toronto, York, Peel and Ottawa last week, as a way to get a better handle on spread in schools.

Brown said earlier Thursday that the number of cases at Thorncliffe is a concern. It’s been a “revolving door of cases” there, she said, since around Oct. 24 when an outbreak was first declared, and there have been 41 cases since the start of September. Eighteen classes and about 348 students are in isolation, along with 27 teachers, she said.

Brown believes cases in schools are being underestimated, as many children have mild COVID-19 symptoms or none at all.

The spread of the virus in schools has been a hot-button issue, with officials insisting they don’t seem to be drivers of transmission, while some experts, parents and teachers argue there’s not enough data to know the full picture.

Brown said Toronto Public Health has not been transparent about contact tracing, and how they determine which schools to close. She wants to keep schools open in general for students’ well-being, but they need “the tools” to be safe, such as smaller class sizes and more funding for ventilation systems.

“This is a pandemic why, are we nickel-and-diming the health and safety of students? It’s unacceptable.”

Toronto District School Board spokesperson Ryan Bird said it’s “hard to speculate” on whether more staff will walk off the job at other schools as testing is rolled out. “It really comes down to an individual feeling that they think it’s unsafe,” he said.

“They’ve initiated this process this morning, the ministry of labour is involved, and we’re obviously trying to answer as many questions as we can to allay some of these concerns,” he said Thursday morning over the phone on his way to the school before the decision was made to close it.

Toronto Public Health spokesperson Dr. Vinita Dubey said in an email before the closure was announced that the agency continues to work with school boards to ensure protections are in place at schools, including daily screening and targeted testing.

“Decisions on whether or not schools should stay open are based on many factors including how many cases are related to the school, how many of the cases could have been acquired or spread in the school, and how well the school is implementing protective measures,” she said. “We also provide advice and recommendations to our local school boards to inform the school boards’ decisions on class and school dismissals.”

She added that “it is also important to remember that not all COVID-19 cases that are related to schools got their infection at school.” The agency does contact tracing in schools, but has still not resumed wider contact tracing in the community. It stopped contacting the close contacts of positive cases outside of outbreak settings in October, citing overwhelming case numbers.

Asymptomatic testing will also be carried out at the TDSB’s nearby Marc Garneau Collegiate Institute and Valley Park Middle School, as well as Lester B. Pearson Collegiate Institute in Scarborough. schools have also been selected: St. Fidelis, St. John the Evangelist and Chaminade College. York Region is targeting 30 schools, including those that don’t already have a problem with cases, to get a baseline.

Education Minister Stephen Lecce told reporters Thursday that the province began asymptomatic testing “in the highest-risk regions of the province … with the aim to identify” cases and reduce transmission among students, staff and their families.

“That’s why we launched, it,” he said, noting the high turnout for the Thorncliffe testing.

When asked about teachers there refusing to work, he said he appreciates their concerns, and that “the ministry of labour has a job, an independent review to ensure that staff, wherever they are working, are in a safe environment … and I have confidence in the process.”

He said public health makes the decisions on keeping schools open, but comparing Ontario to the rest of Canada or jurisdictions around the world, “we are still able to keep our schools open, and safe.”

But New Democrat MPP Marit Stiles, her party’s education critic, said the government should begin a comprehensive program of asymptomatic testing.

The province needs to track how COVID is being transmitted in schools, and testing in the four hot spots is not enough, because “basing them only in areas with the highest infection rates is really missing the point,” Stiles said in the legislature Thursday.

“I can assure you that no parent or guardian whose child has been exposed to COVID at school is comforted by this minister getting up in (the legislature) every single day to say, ‘Hey, relax, the kids are all right.’ Tell that to the families at Thorncliffe.”

May Warren is a Toronto-based breaking news reporter for the Star. Follow her on Twitter:

Libaan Osman is a breaking news reporter, working out of the Star’s radio room in Toronto. Reach him via email:

Kristin Rushowy is a Toronto-based reporter covering Ontario politics for the Star. Follow her on Twitter: