Privacy Risks of Contact Tracing Raise Difficult Questions for Employers

Fenwick employment practices counsel Matthew Damm was quoted in a Protocol article about employee privacy issues related to implementing contact tracing as employers look to reopen their offices in the next phase of the COVID-19 outbreak.

“It's still a huge question mark,” Damm told Protocol. With few state-approved contact-tracing apps and no federal guidance on the issue, he urged companies to pursue the “least invasive” methods possible.

Damm added that contact tracing is just one of many ways that COVID-19 has upended business as usual. “The idea of an employer taking an employee's temperature would have sounded absurd three months ago,” he said. “It's certainly not a world that we're used to living in.”

The full article is available through the Protocol website.