Building a mechanism of digital trust to visualize the safety of restaurants

First, we will look at the reasons why restaurants are in a crisis.

As COVID-19 infections spread, the government is urging people to avoid the three Cs: closed spaces, crowded places, and close-contact settings. Due to factors such as the declaration of a state of emergency, some restaurants have been forced to shorten their business hours. People hesitate to eat out, and restaurants are suffering a decrease in revenue.

At the same time, people are saying that they do want to eat out. According to a survey conducted by Retty Inc. (hereinafter referred to as Retty), a provider of a restaurant review service that requires users to use their real names, nearly 50% of respondents said that they wanted to eat out as frequently as they did before.

Although people actually want to go to restaurants as they did before, they decide not go because they are afraid of the risk of contracting COVID-19. We assume that this is the reality facing the restaurant business.

In fact, Retty survey respondents indicated that they believed restaurants should take measures to mitigate the risk of COVID-19 infections. More than 90 percent of the respondents said restaurants should handle the disinfection of hands, tables, and door knobs. More than 70 percent said indicated that restaurants should manage the health of employees, leave adequate space between seats, and periodically ventilate the restaurant.

If restaurants are able to demonstrate that they are safe (at a low risk of spreading COVID-19), their revenue might not drop as sharply as it does now.

Many restaurants are implementing measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 infections. For example, they have reduced the number of available seats or have changed the flow of employees and customers to avoid the three Cs. They also ventilate more frequently than before and take anti-infection measures in accordance with guidelines issued by national and local governments. For example, restaurant employees wash their hands, perform disinfection, and take their temperatures.

Restaurants are implementing various measures to ensure customer safety and posting notices of such measures at their entrances in an effort to convince customers that they are safe and with the hope of attracting customers back.

Apparently, however, restaurants will have to do still more to prove to customers that they have already taken sufficient anti-infection measures.

Although some safety measures (such as washing hands and wearing masks) are easy for customers to confirm, others such as ventilation (which is believed to reduce the risk of infection) are hard to confirm.

Even if a restaurant uses a circulator for ventilation, it is quite difficult for them to quantitatively demonstrate that the restaurant is adequately ventilated and that the air in the dining area is circulating properly.

Even if anti-infection measures have been properly implemented, it is difficult to convince customers that the restaurant is safe, which is a major problem facing the restaurant industry.

What kinds of solutions can be implemented to demonstrate that a restaurant is safe?

Hitachi, Ltd., is working with eHills to conduct a demonstration test of a system called Omise Trust (meaning “trust in restaurants”), which visualizes the safety of restaurants and provides other relevant information. Conducted as part of phase 2 of the Cross-ministerial Strategic Innovation Promotion Program (SIP) to achieve cyber and physical security for an IoT society, the aim of this demonstration test is to verify whether the trustworthiness of supply chains can be ensured.

For restaurants today, measures to prevent the spread of COVID-19 constitute part of the service provision process of their supply chains. Our goal is to ensure that restaurants are able to demonstrate with evidence that such measures have been properly implemented. In the midst of the COVID-19 pandemic, we hope to contribute to the restaurant industry by helping improve people’s trust in restaurants. In addition, we hope that our efforts will benefit society in a way that can be verified.

Omise Trust organizes information useful in avoiding the three Cs (for example, information on the distance between tables and ventilation in a restaurant) as well as information about health and sanitation measures (such as taking employees’ temperatures and disinfecting surfaces) for each restaurant. The organized information can be accessed via search engines, restaurant information websites, and the homepages of the restaurants themselves. We are also planning to provide an API that will allow the information to be embedded into each of these websites.

By entering information into Omise Trust, restaurant employees can share information with customers, helping improve trust in the restaurant and attracting more customers.

We set up policies on handling information to strengthen the trustworthiness of Omise Trust.

For example, restaurant customers are permitted to reuse the posted information and to generate links to the content. However, any use of misleading representation of the information is prohibited. In addition, restaurants that register information are responsible for the veracity and legitimateness of their information. Restaurants must also grant copyright of the information to Omise Trust, so that the entered data and information can be provided to third parties.

By setting appropriate rules, we hope to improve the trustworthiness of Omise Trust.

Omise Trust publishes the data entered by humans and the data collected by sensors (IoT devices) to help verify the effectiveness of implemented measures. Hitachi, Ltd., and eHills have started a demonstration test to verify the use of IoT in restaurants and are now using IoT devices to collect and publish objective information.

As explained earlier, ventilation is one of the anti-infection measures demanded by restaurant customers. As such, some restaurants are now collecting data on ventilation.

IoT can be used to identify whether a restaurant is properly ventilated. By installing devices in a restaurant to measure the amount of airflow, we can then collect sensor information over the internet and assess whether there is adequate ventilation.

With objective data collected by IoT devices, we can improve customers’ trust in the safety of restaurants.

Furthermore, there is a possibility that IoT can be used to measure CO₂ concentrations and noise levels. According to a study, measuring an area’s CO₂ concentration can help determine whether the area is properly ventilated. If we can verify both the CO₂ concentration and the amount of airflow, we might be able to better assess the amount of ventilation in a restaurant.

As for noise, a high noise level might indicate that people are talking loudly and thus more airborne droplets are being expelled. IoT can be used to measure and visualize noise levels, which might help to improve trust in a restaurant and attract more customers.

Our efforts to save restaurants from this crisis by using digital trust have only just begun. Going forward, we will also collect data from small restaurants and carry out other initiatives to increase the value of Omise Trust.

If people are flooded with data, they might not be able to decide whether a restaurant is trustworthy. To ensure that our service will benefit both restaurants and their customers, we will also need to figure out what kind of data should be published.

We will continue to enhance Omise Trust to provide optimum services for the restaurant industry.