Employee Health-Screening Technology
| Employee Health-Screening Technology | |
|---|---|
| Short Title | Companies Adopt New Employee Temperature Tracking Technologies |
| Location | Los Angeles |
| Date | July 2020 |
| Solove Harm | Surveillance, Identification, Distortion |
| Information | Identifying, Medical and Health, Physical Characteristics |
| Threat Actors | A Subway restaurant |
| Individuals | |
| Affected | Subway employees |
| High Risk Groups | Employees |
| Tangible Harms | |
Companies start adopting new employee-tracking technologies, such as temperature screening combined with facial recognition cameras.
Description
In 2020, in the context of COVID19 pandemic, companies in the United States are adopting new employee-tracking technologies partly in response to White House guidelines asking employers to monitor their “work force for indicative symptoms” and prohibit employees with symptoms from returning to workplaces unless a health provider has cleared them.
One Subway restaurant in Los Angeles recently began testing a new health-screening setup for workers.
It works in a way, that an employee stepping inside food prep area is scanned with a fever-detection and facial recognition camera, which quickly identifies them by name and gauges their temperature. Then a small tablet screen underneath the camera posts a message that clears them to enter. Surveillance Identification
Fever-screening devices could inadvertently expose employees who are running higher temperatures because they are under stress or have other health conditions. In that case, assuming a person has COVID19 would be an example of Distortion.
Michael T. Osterholm, the director of the Center for Infectious Disease Research and Policy at the University of Minnesota said, he thinks employers need to look carefully before they jump into any of this, as some companies are embarking upon things that are not going to help and may actually set us back.
Laws and Regulations
Sources
[https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/technology/coronavirus-infrared-cameras-temperature-sensors.html?searchResultPosition=9_%0A%0Ahttps://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/technology/coronavirus-worker-testing-privacy.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/02/technology/coronavirus-infrared-cameras-temperature-sensors.html?searchResultPosition=9
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/11/technology/coronavirus-worker-testing-privacy.html]