Calling Police Investigations ‘Contact Tracing’ Could Block Efforts to Stop Covid-19
Privacy fears may keep people from downloading proximity apps
After the May 25 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer was recorded and streamed on Facebook, protests against police brutality erupted across the city.
Following days of demonstrations last week, Minneapolis police and the Minnesota State Patrol arrested dozens of protesters. On May 30, in a televised press conference that was also broadcast on Twitter, Minnesota Department of Public Safety Commissioner John Harrington said that law enforcement had begun “contact tracing” those taken into custody.
“We’ve begun making arrests,” Harrington said. “We’ve begun analyzing the data of who we’ve arrested. We’ve begun doing, almost similar to our Covid [work]. It’s contact tracing. Who are they associated with? What platforms are they advocating for?”
He used the term “contact tracing” as an analogy; in reality, he was referring to routine police work. But the damage had been done. The news that Minnesota authorities were carrying out contact tracing on demonstrators swept Twitter, tapping into fears that a tool intended to track cases of the coronavirus could be abused by police. Now, public health experts worry…
