Bloomberg Law
May 12, 2020, 7:05 PM

Apple Faces Regional German Probe Over Store Temperature Checks

Daniel R. Stoller
Daniel R. Stoller
Senior Legal Editor

Apple Inc. is facing a probe by a regional German data protection office into whether its plan to take the temperature of its store customers violates EU privacy rules, the regulator said.

The Hessian data protection agency’s investigation comes after Apple reopened stores across Germany May 11 with extra safety procedures, including temperature checks and social distancing.

The office wants to know if the temperature checks violate the applicable data protection rules, Ulrike Muller, a spokesperson for the Hessian Data Protection Commissioner, said. There are no results yet from the probe and the office is coordinating with other German data protection authorities, Muller said

An Apple representative didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.

—With assistance from Barbara Tasch

To contact the reporter on this story: Daniel R. Stoller in Washington at dstoller@bloomberglaw.com

To contact the editor responsible for this story: Keith Perine at kperine@bloomberglaw.com