Small government advocates raise concerns over contact tracing in coronavirus fightWashington Examiner, Apr 23, 2020
A high-tech method to pinpoint who is infected with the coronavirus is drawing pushback over potential privacy abuses.
Rep. Andy Biggs of Arizona, the chairman of the House Freedom Caucus, a group of the chamber's most conservative Republicans, is among the most outspoken about contact tracing.
That process involves health workers interviewing people who have been diagnosed with COVID-19 to figure out who they may have recently been in contact with. Then, they tell people who may have been exposed, sometimes encouraging them to quarantine themselves to prevent spreading the virus further.
Biggs last week warned that contact tracing could be abused by authorities. Biggs, first elected to the House in 2016, told the Washington Examiner his concerns had been verified by reports that a firm hired by Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer to spearhead COVID-19 contact tracing, and which would manage the medical data of private citizens, had ties to Democratic politicians and had been given a no-bid contract. Whitmer eventually ended the state's contract with the company.
"This is exactly why one should be concerned," Biggs said. "There's so many things to think about here when you start looking at this, and you see what happened in Michigan, and they basically had to pull it back."
The story surfaced after Commissioner Wes Nakagiri, a Republican from Livingston County, Michigan, volunteered to help out in the state’s contact tracing program in the Detroit exurbs. He discovered through volunteer training materials that Michiganders’ private medical information was being logged and banked through a Democratic political consulting firm.
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https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/small-government-advocates-raise-concerns-over-contact-tracing-in-coronavirus-fight
