How to use the Check In Scotland QR code

Check In Scotland will allow you to log your contact details with any business or venue displaying the Check In Scotland Test and Protect QR code poster.

This includes:

• pubs, bars, restaurants and cafes
• tourism and leisure businesses, such as theme parks, museums and cinemas
• close contact services, including hairdressers, barbers, beauticians, tattooists, sports and massage therapists
• services run by local councils, such as libraries, leisure centres and registration offices
• cremation authorities, burial authorities, places of worship or funeral director service rooms offering funeral services
• places of worship

Check In Scotland works with NHS Scotland's Test and Protect contact tracing system to:

• collect your details
• alert you if you came into close contact with someone at a business or venue who later tests positive for COVID-19

If you get an alert, it will give you some advice about what you should do next.

Anyone over the age of 12 can use the Check In Scotland service. The service is designed to take as few details from you as needed. These details will be kept securely for 21 days before being deleted, unless someone who's part of the NHS Test and Protect response team needs to keep them for longer for public health reasons.

Our app service

You can choose between using the Check In Scotland online form to check in and out of venues or the Check In Scotland app.

You can download the Check In Scotland app from the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store.

How Check In Scotland works

You can use the Check In Scotland service wherever you see a Check In Scotland QR code displayed on a poster.

To use the service, scan a Check In Scotland QR code with your mobile phone camera or, if you have one, a QR code scanning app. Just select the app you want to use and hold your phone's camera over the QR code until it's been scanned by your phone.

Once scanned, the QR code will link you to an online form where you can enter your contact details and 'check in' at the venue you're visiting. Checking in will give the NHS the time and date you arrived.

If you've already downloaded the Check In Scotland app then, rather than being taken to an online form, you'll be taken to the Check In Scotland app. If you don't have the app, you can download it from the Apple App Store or from Google Play.

You should also check out when you leave a venue. You can check out on the same Check In Scotland page you used to check in, or by re-scanning the Check In Scotland QR code from the venue's poster. You can also check out using the Check In Scotland app.

Access to Check In Scotland from your mobile phone

To use the Check In Scotland service, you need to be able to access the internet on a phone or tablet. The service has been designed to work across the vast majority of mobile phones that support browsing the internet.

This app should work with:

• iOS 11 or later
• Android 6.0 or later

For an older phone that cannot read a QR code automatically from its camera, you can download QR code reading apps. If you cannot scan a Check In Scotland QR code, a short URL is printed on Check In Scotland posters that can be typed into your phone's internet browser.

If you do not have a mobile phone or cannot access the internet, the business or venue you're visiting must take your contact details using a pen and paper.

What happens if someone tests positive for COVID-19 after you've visited a business or venue

If NHS Scotland's Test and Protect service can see you were at a venue at the same time as someone who's tested positive for COVID-19, they may contact you to let you know. If they do, they'll give you some advice about what you should do next.

Any alert you're sent will be by SMS text to your mobile number, as long as you gave your mobile number when giving your contact to Check In Scotland. The NHS will send you an email if you have not given your mobile number, or a letter if you have not given either your mobile number or an email address. Any SMS text, email or letter you get will be clearly marked as being from NHS Scotland Test and Protect.

If you test positive for COVID-19 after visiting a business or venue

If you test positive for COVID-19 after visiting a venue and using Check In Scotland, NHS Test and Protect will contact people who were at the venue at the same time as you.

They will not give your personal details when they do this.

Find out about testing on NHS inform.

What's in an NHS Scotland Test and Protect alert

This alert will ask you to watch out for symptoms of COVID-19, and to book a COVID-19 test only if you or someone in your household displays COVID-19 symptoms.

Self-isolating

You will only get an alert advising you to self-isolate if NHS Scotland Test and Protect believe that you came in close contact with someone who has tested positive for COVID-19. NHS Scotland's contact tracers will decide this based on data from Check In Scotland and the Test and Protect app - you should use both to help the NHS Test & Protect service work out the best advice to give you.

Visit NHS inform for guidance if you need to self-isolate.

You do not need to self-isolate if you are fully vaccinated, had the second dose more than two weeks ago and take a PCR test that comes back negative. If you are critical staff, you must also agree to have daily lateral flow tests or self-isolate for 10 days.

You do not need to self-isolate or take a new PCR test if you are fully vaccinated with a recent prior COVID-19 infection (within 90 days).

If you are 18 years (+4 months) or under and you have not been fully vaccinated you must stay in self-isolation until you take a PCR test and get a negative result.

How we use your data

Only public health teams whose job it is to deal with the coronavirus (COVID-19) response will have access to your details.

Your details will be held for 21 days in a secure, encrypted data store. When your details are no longer needed, they will be deleted in a safe way. Your details will not be used for any type of marketing.

You can read the Check In Scotland privacy policy if you need to know more about how we use and store your data.

If you want to ask for support or to give feedback about the Check In Scotland service you can email: QRsupport@gov.scot.

Other help and support

Find out more about COVID-19 and the support you can get.

Contact tracing scams

If you are contacted by Test and Protect, find out how to confirm that it's real and not a scam.