Tel Aviv - Israel's Corsight AI, which has developed technology to recognize faces concealed by masks, goggles and plastic shields, raised $5 million from Awz Ventures, a Canadian fund focused on intelligence and security technologies.
Corsight said on Sunday it will use the funds to market the platform and to continue development.
In March, China's Hanwang Technology Ltd said it has come up with technology that can recognize people when they are wearing masks, as many are today because of the coronavirus.
Corsight said it offers a facial recognition system able to process information captured on video cameras and can address difficulties resulting from the outbreak, where a large portion of the population is moving about with faces partially covered.
The technology can be used to issue alerts of people who are in violation of quarantine and have gone outside to public areas while covering their faces with masks, Corsight said.
If a person is found to have COVID-19 within an organization the system can quickly produce a report of people who were near the sick individual, the company said.
Corsight said it has permanent systems installed in European airports and hospitals, Asian cities, South American police departments and border crossings, and African mines and banks.
Tel Aviv-based Corsight was founded in late 2019 and has 15 employees. It is a subsidiary of Cortica Group, which has raised over $70 million to develop artificial intelligence technology.
The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) on Thursday donated vital intensive care equipment to Gaza hospitals but said they remain underequipped for any wider outbreak of the new coronavirus in the territory.
With passage through Gaza's borders tightly controlled by neighbouring Israel and Egypt, only 17 people have tested positive in the Palestinian territory for the novel coronavirus.
But health authorities are concerned about the risk of widespread infection among a population of two million living in close quarters in the small coastal enclave.
"The prospect of an outbreak of COVID-19 in Gaza is frightening, given the weakness of the health infrastructure and the dense population of the Gaza Strip," said Daniel Duvillard, head of the ICRC Delegation in Israel and the Palestinian territories.
The ICRC aid included a ventilator, monitors, defibrillators and suction devices and pumps.