"EU privacy body urges anonymization of location data for COVID-19 tracking", 22 April 2020

The European Data Protection Board (EDPB) has published guidance for the use of location data and contacts tracing tools intended to mitigate the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic...

The European Commission  and the EU parliament have already weighed in with their own recommendations in this area, including a toolbox to help guide contacts tracing app developers. The Commission has also urged Member States to take a common approach to building such apps, and has been leaning on local telcos to provide “anonymized and aggregated” metadata for modelling the spread of the virus across the EU...

Given the inherent complexity it [the EDPB] also recommends transparency around the anonymization methodology used...

On contact tracing apps — aka digital tools that are designed to map proximity between individuals, as a proxy for infection risk — the EDPB urges that use of such apps be voluntary.

“The systematic and large scale monitoring of location and/or contacts between natural persons is a grave intrusion into their privacy,” it warns...

The importance of accountability is also front and center, with the EDPB saying the controller of such apps must be clearly defined...

You can read the full document here.