Two French technology companies, Extelia and INSIDE Contactless, together with social services provider Abrapa today announced they have formed a consortium to develop a trusted third-party platform employing NFC and other contactless technologies to enhance the delivery of social services in France to the elderly and other people who need home care. The team has been awarded a grant for this project from France’s Minister of Economy, Industry and Employment Christian Estrossi. This is one of 12 such initiatives selected by the Ministry to promote, develop and deploy innovative services and applications based on NFC technology.

The project, dubbed “Confiance,” is being lead by Extelia’s innovation department, and is expected to be completed and demonstrated next summer. The Trust project was chosen by the Ministry based on its originality, the openness of the application and compliance with existing standards, quality of the partnership, viability of the project, project management and anticipated economic benefits, among other criteria.

“By developing this trusted third-party platform, our group hopes to bring greater trust and efficiency to the delivery of social services for the elderly and others who need home care by improving the workflow and optimizing the business processes of the services agency, including the novel use of contactless technologies to record and validate transactions,” said Jean-Luc Fretard, innovation director at Extelia. “We believe this platform will greatly improve the reliability of these services, lower the cost to deliver them and, most importantly, improve the quality of life for the recipients of these services.”

The project will employ a combination of NFC-enabled mobile phones and contactless identification cards, stickers, fobs and USB NFC dongles to record and validate the delivery of services to clients’ homes and automate billing processes. When a service provider visits a client’s home, they will use an NFC phone to read the client’s ID credential, which will log the start time and location and validate the client. The parties will perform similar transaction at the end of the visit, enabling the application to record the duration of the visit and transmit all transaction data to Extelia’s platform in the cloud. The platform will update service appointment schedules, initiate the complex billing process and distribute invoices appropriately to clients and the government agencies supporting these services.

“This project provides us with a unique opportunity to showcase our MicroPass®-based ICAO-Lite identification technology and employ it in combination with NFC to support a system with the potential to provide real human benefits,” said Bertrand Moussel, executive vice president, worldwide sales at INSIDE Contactless. “We look forward to working with our consortium partners to demonstrate the practical application of contactless technologies to improving the human condition.”

Each of the consortium members will apply their specific expertise in developing the Trust project. Extelia will develop, host and operate the trusted third-party platform, optimize business processes and workflows for Abrapa, and coordinate and communicate service delivery transactions between Abrapa’s service personnel and their IT services provider, GIES. Abrapa also is developing the functional specifications for the project.

“As the largest and oldest association providing aid and services to people in the Bas-Rhin county of France, we are excited to be a part of this project and to demonstrate how this trusted third-party platform and the innovative use of contactless technologies can improve people’s lives,” said Jean-Jacques Pimmel, president of Abrapa. “Every day, our more than 2000 service professionals work hard to ensure the quality and delivery of our personal services, and we are constantly seeking new ways to make them even better.”

INSIDE Contactless will develop the NFC application for the mobile phones used to record and communicate the service delivery transactions to the Extelia platform, and will supply the ICAO-Lite ID credentials, including cards, stickers, fobs and USB NFC dongles.