Written by the people who answer the alarms. Every section below describes what actually happens at a Canadian monitoring centre when a worker misses a check-in, and what the law expects of the employer.
Lone worker monitoring is a system that confirms, at set intervals, that a person working alone is safe, and that triggers a defined human response when they cannot confirm it. The confirmation is the check-in. The response is the part that matters. An app that only notifies a supervisor is a check-in tool. A service where a trained operator answers every missed check-in, around the clock, is monitoring.
Lone worker monitoring is the practice of keeping a regular, documented line of contact with an employee who works out of sight and earshot of colleagues, so that if something goes wrong, someone knows quickly and acts. It has three parts: a check-in schedule the worker follows, a way to raise an alarm on demand, and a response procedure that starts automatically when a check-in is missed or an alarm is raised.
A lone worker is anyone doing their job without direct supervision or another person nearby: a home-care nurse on an evening visit, a security guard on a night patrol, a meter reader in a rural service area, a store employee closing alone, a technician in a plant room. Canadian occupational health and safety law treats these workers as a distinct risk category because help is not readily available if they are hurt, threatened or taken ill.
Monitoring exists to close that gap. Instead of an injured worker lying undiscovered until the next shift, a missed check-in becomes a known event with a fixed response and a time stamp. The quality of a monitoring system comes down to one question: when a check-in is missed at 2 a.m., who notices, and what do they do?
Most products sold as "lone worker apps" are check-in tools. They remind the worker to confirm they are safe, and when a confirmation is missed they send a notification to a supervisor, a coworker or a list of contacts. That is useful, but it hands the response to whoever happens to see the notification, and it assumes that person is awake, reachable and knows what to do.
A monitored service adds a staffed monitoring centre. Every missed check-in and every panic alert goes to a trained operator whose job is to respond, at any hour, following an escalation plan the employer wrote in advance. The difference shows up in the middle of the night, on weekends, and in the first minutes of an emergency.
| Question | App-only check-in tool | Human-monitored service |
|---|---|---|
| Who sees a missed check-in? | Whoever is on the notification list | A trained operator at a 24/7 monitoring centre |
| What happens at 2 a.m.? | Depends on whether a contact is awake | The same response as at 2 p.m. |
| Who follows the escalation plan? | The supervisor, from memory | The operator, from the written plan on screen |
| Workers without a smartphone | Usually not covered | Covered by phone call check-ins, a wearable or satellite |
| Compliance record | Assembled by the employer | Every check-in and response logged with time stamps |
| Typical cost model | Per user, software only | Per user, monitoring included |
Neither model is wrong for every organization. A small team with a supervisor who is always on shift can run on an app. Once shifts run overnight, workers spread across regions, or a regulator asks for proof that the procedure works every time, the monitored model is what holds up. Our detailed comparison, CheckMate vs OK Alone, walks through one of each.
This is the sequence a CheckMate operator follows. The timings between steps are set by the employer in the escalation plan, and every step is logged with a time stamp.
The worker is prompted through the Safe Alone app, an automated phone call to any landline or cell, a Bluetooth Smart Button, or a satellite device. One tap or one call confirms they are safe and resets the timer.
When the confirmation does not arrive within the window the employer set, an alarm opens at ProTELEC's monitoring centre in Winnipeg with the worker's name, schedule, last known location and emergency contacts on screen.
A trained operator calls the worker directly. Most missed check-ins end here: a forgotten tap, a dead battery, a shift that ran long. The operator confirms the worker is safe and closes the alarm.
If the worker cannot be reached, the operator works through the employer's escalation list in order, notifying the designated emergency contacts and sharing the worker's GPS location and the details of the alarm.
The designated contacts decide whether to send a colleague, attend themselves, or involve emergency services. CheckMate operators do not dispatch emergency services; they make sure the right people know, fast, and stay available to support the response. Every action is recorded for the compliance file.
The same sequence runs when a worker presses the panic button, except that step three is skipped: a panic alert goes straight to the escalation list. For the full lineup of check-in methods, see the working alone check-in app page.
Canadian regulations do not set a single national interval. They require the employer to assess the risk of the work and set a check-in frequency that matches it, then follow the procedure consistently. In practice the interval follows the consequence of a delay: how long could a worker go undiscovered before the harm becomes serious?
CheckMate schedules are set per worker and per shift, from every 15 minutes upward, and a worker can shorten their own interval when a task gets riskier. The interval is a policy decision the employer records in the risk assessment; the monitoring system is what makes it enforceable. Province-specific expectations are summarized in the working alone legislation guide.
Every province and territory requires employers to protect workers who work alone or in isolation, and most spell out check-in procedures directly. The wording differs, but the pattern is the same: assess the risk, write a procedure for regular contact, follow it, and keep records.
| Jurisdiction | Where the requirement lives | What it asks for |
|---|---|---|
| British Columbia | OHS Regulation, sections 4.20.1 to 4.23 | Written procedures for checking a worker's well-being at set intervals, and a person designated to do it |
| Alberta | OHS Code, Part 28 | Hazard assessment for working alone and an effective means of communication with the worker |
| Saskatchewan | OHS Regulations, section 3-24 | Identify the risks of working alone and provide an effective communication system |
| Manitoba | Workplace Safety and Health Act and Regulation | Working alone provisions under the Act and its regulation, applied through the employer's safety and health program |
| Ontario | OHSA general duty (section 25) and Bill 168 | Every reasonable precaution, workplace violence assessment; no lone-worker-specific regulation |
| Quebec | Regulation respecting OHS, section 322 | Efficient surveillance of an isolated worker, continuous or intermittent |
| New Brunswick | Regulation 92-133 | Written code of practice for employees working alone |
| Nova Scotia | OHS Act general duty | Every reasonable precaution; check-in procedures as the accepted standard |
| Prince Edward Island | OHS Act and General Regulations | General duty approach applied to workers alone or in isolation |
| Newfoundland and Labrador | OHS Act and Regulations | Working alone provisions covering onshore and offshore work |
| Federally regulated employers | Canada Labour Code Part II, section 124 | General duty to protect the health and safety of every employee |
Each row links to a primary-source summary on the province page. Verified against the legislation in June 2026.
Two federal instruments sit over all of this. Section 124 of the Canada Labour Code binds federally regulated employers to a general duty to protect every employee. The Westray Law, Bill C-45 of 2004, added section 217.1 to the Criminal Code and imposes a legal duty on anyone directing work to take reasonable steps to prevent bodily harm, with criminal liability for organizations when a workplace death results. Together they mean that a check-in procedure that exists on paper but is not followed is a liability, not a defence. Detailed province pages: Ontario, British Columbia, Alberta, and the full list.
Lone worker monitoring in Canada is priced per user per month. The price depends on three things: whether a staffed monitoring centre is included or the employer handles the response, whether hardware such as a wearable or satellite device is needed, and the size of the workforce. App-only tools sit at the low end because the employer is doing the monitoring. Monitored services cost more per user because a 24/7 operator is part of the price.
CheckMate's pricing is per user per month, from $17.50, and it includes the Safe Alone app, 24/7 monitoring centre response, GPS location, the supervisor dashboard, compliance reporting and support. There are no setup fees and no long-term contract, and volume discounts apply to larger teams. Hardware options such as the SOS wearable or the satellite device are quoted separately. The full breakdown is in the FAQ.
Three questions separate a real quote from a headline price. Is human monitoring included, or is the response left to your team? What does a missed check-in at 3 a.m. actually trigger? And is every check-in and response logged in a form you could hand to an inspector? A price that looks cheaper usually leaves at least one of those with you.
CheckMate is the lone worker monitoring service of ProTELEC, a Winnipeg company that has been monitoring alarms since 1968 and launched CheckMate in 2003 as a scheduled safety check-in system run through its monitoring centre. The centre holds ULC Five Diamond certification, is staffed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by trained operators, and handles more than 3.8 million safety checks a year for 900 and more Canadian organizations.
See how it applies in your sector on the industry pages, or read what customers say in the District of North Vancouver and Save-On-Foods case studies.
Every Canadian province and territory has occupational health and safety legislation requiring employers to have procedures for checking on workers who work alone or in isolation, and federally regulated employers fall under the Canada Labour Code Part II. The Westray Law adds criminal liability for organizations that fail to take reasonable steps to protect workers. A documented, followed check-in procedure is the accepted way to meet the requirement.
A lone worker app is the check-in tool the worker uses. Lone worker monitoring is the whole system, including who responds when a check-in is missed. Many apps send the missed check-in to a supervisor or coworker. A monitored service routes it to a trained operator at a staffed centre who follows the employer's escalation plan at any hour.
No. When a worker cannot be reached, CheckMate operators notify the designated emergency contacts the employer chose and share the worker's location and alarm details. Those contacts decide whether to involve emergency services. This keeps the decision with the people who know the worker and the site, and it is documented every time.
Yes. CheckMate covers workers in cell range through the Safe Alone app, workers near a landline through automated phone call check-ins, and remote sites through a satellite device on the Iridium network, which reaches the most remote parts of northern Canada.
Monitoring is priced per user per month. CheckMate starts at $17.50 per user per month with 24/7 monitoring, the app, GPS, the dashboard and compliance reporting included, with no setup fees or long-term contract. Hardware such as a wearable or satellite device is quoted separately.
The alarm opens at the monitoring centre as soon as the check-in window the employer set expires, and a trained operator begins the escalation sequence immediately: calling the worker first, then notifying the designated emergency contacts if the worker cannot be reached. Every step is time-stamped.
Book a free 15-minute consultation. We will look at your workers, with and without smartphones, and map exactly how monitored check-ins and escalation would run for you.