ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Companies and public officials have recently announced efforts to track the coronavirus by using cell phone location data and drones. That's raising big red flags.
"The government is prohibited from doing this type of activity in the absence of a warrant and yet so many of us are willing to freely give up our own freedoms," says KMOX Legal Analyst Brad Young of Harris, Dowell, Fisher and Young.
Google has launched COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports saying stored location history data from users who have opted in, could be used to see if communities are following social distancing.
Apple and Google are partnering in data sharing and tracking technology. And some states are even offering smart device apps to citizens who can volunteer to have their movements tracked to monitor the spread of the virus.
Young points out -- even the police can't track someone by GPS without a warrant -- two recent cases reinforce our constitutional right to privacy, "COVID-19 it kind of creates a window of opportunity for new policies that infringe on our constitutional right of privacy in the name of responding to a pandemic."
Young says he's concerned that these measures might stay in place after the pandemic is over, eroding personal privacy rights.
In New York, drones are being deployed to monitor social distancing behavior. A release from one company boasts their drones are equipped with specialized sensors and computer vision systems that can display temperature, heart and respiratory rates, as well as detect people sneezing and coughing in crowds.
Young says it's not a privacy issue if the drone is simply taking snapshots in a public space, "but if those same drones and cameras are tracking individuals to see where they are in fact going, or to base their movements between homes and businesses and so forth, then it swerves into the area where the US Supreme Court has said is a constitutionally protected right to privacy."