Contact Tracing Poses ‘Pandora’s Box’ for Reopening Businesses

Businesses looking at smartphone-based tools to track their workers’ contact with people infected with coronavirus will have to walk a delicate tightrope between reopening safely and protecting employee privacy.

Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.‘s Google released initial versions of new virus proximity tracking tools Wednesday so public health agencies can prepare in advance of a mid-May roll out. The applications are designed to use public health information and unique Bluetooth identifiers assigned to devices to notify people when they’ve come into proximity with someone with the virus. Digital contact tracing would supplement analog efforts, in which tracers try to ...