ANALYSIS: Hitting the Pause Button on Contact Tracing

Long recognized by public health officials as a means to track and curb the spread of communicable diseases, “contact tracing” has now entered the lexicon of HR departments, corporate boards, and legislative bodies, thanks to Covid-19. As businesses start to reopen, contact tracing apps are among the options under consideration for safer workplaces and communities.

Understandably, many national governments have embraced the technology. The MIT Technology Review has compiled a “Covid Tracing Tracker” of nearly 30 countries that have backed a tracing app. France, for example, has deployed an app known as “StopCovid”—which France’s data protection authority has ...