Fever-checking technology is a danger to privacy and may not be accurate, ACLU says
Temperature scanners are in demand during the coronavirus pandemic, but they may pose a danger to privacy, the American Civil Liberties Union warns.
The nonprofit group also says the technology may not be a reliable way to check if someone has an infection, according to a report released Tuesday.
As states reopen, some businesses are turning to technology to detect signs of fever, which can be a symptom of COVID-19. Companies across the country are looking into devices that screen temperatures of their workers, The New York Times and other news outlets report.
Artificial intelligence start-up Kogniz has added heat-sensing technology to its cameras, The Washington Post reported last month. While its clients haven’t sought to link face recognition with temperature data, some were reviewing their privacy policies, according to the newspaper.
“We feel like this AI can help bring things back to normalcy,” Daniel Putterman of Kogniz told The Washington Post. “I don’t believe body temperature is a piece of private information anymore.”
But the ACLU says fever-detecting technology could raise privacy concerns beyond the pandemic.
Though remote scans that don’t retain data aren’t an “enormous invasion of privacy,” the use of the technology could start to normalize collecting health information, including heart rates and breathing rates, according to the organization.
The ACLU has also raised questions about accuracy, saying “temperature checks should not be deployed unless public health experts say conclusively that they will help.”
It’s possible that some coronavirus patients don’t develop fevers, health experts say.
“The vast majority of cases are mild to moderate,” Dr. Joseph Fair, a virologist and epidemiologist, told NBC News in March. “And then we have asymptomatic people as well that are very infectious.”
Also, thermal cameras can be a few degrees off, creating the risk for unreliable readings, according to an online post published in April from the Electronic Frontier Foundation, a nonprofit focused on digital privacy.
“Given the balance of factors involved, we do not think that ’mass screening’ thermal cameras should be used in any temperature screening,” the ACLU said in its report. “Even accurate temperature checks are of dubious usefulness in stopping the spread of the coronavirus.”
Last month, the U.S. Food and Drug Administration said temperature-checking technologies don’t have to go through marketing approval because they’re not used to diagnose or cure a disease. It recommends labeling the devices so users know to confirm temperatures with another device.
The ACLU on its website also outlines the group’s concerns about online classes, contact tracing efforts and “immunity passports,” proposed documents to show that someone doesn’t have COVID-19.
This story was originally published May 20, 2020 at 2:26 PM.
