Many Americans heading back to the factory and the office as the coronavirus pandemic eases will soon begin to notice that their every move is being watched or recorded.
In Midtown Manhattan, thermal cameras will measure body temperatures as employees file into a 32-story office tower at Rockefeller Center. The building’s owner, RXR Realty, said it is also developing a mobile app for tenants to monitor—and score—how closely their workers are complying with social distancing.
PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP said it is preparing to launch this month a phone app for employers that traces contacts by analyzing workers’ interactions in the office. More than 50 clients have expressed interest, including some of the nation’s biggest banks, manufacturers and energy companies.
Advertising giant Interpublic Group of Cos . is exploring dividing its 22,000 U.S. employees into three separate groups, according to perceived health risks, which could include age. Workers could be asked to disclose medical and other personal information about themselves and, in some cases, family members.
Interpublic hasn’t signed off on the system yet, but it’s definitely “on the front burner,” said Eric Ossmann, chief medical officer at the medical-advisory firm Vigilint Protective Health Services, which is advising Interpublic. Interpublic said it has only begun preliminary discussions about the system.
“It is a reasonable approach, if you can get through the operational and some of the privacy and regulatory issues,” Dr. Ossmann said.
Many office workers have become used to widespread security cameras and keycards that register entries and exits. After the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, buildings installed enhanced security measures, including logging in visitors and X-raying briefcases.
The arrival of Covid-19 is taking surveillance to a higher level, with some employers planning to track movements and gather personal information like never before in Western democracies. It marks a new chapter in the debate over privacy, and the trade-offs people are willing to make for safety.
Some companies now see the measures as perhaps the only way to reopen offices without risking a spike in infections, at least until a vaccine becomes available.
Building owners said the systems—similar to measures used in China that helped slow the spread of the virus—promote health and safety, so that employers can better monitor and enforce separation between workers, and quickly determine which employees could have come in contact with an infected colleague.
The pandemic’s “consequences are far-reaching, and it is going to change the way all these places work,” said Amol Sarva, chief executive of flexible-office company Knotel, which is adding features to its app that would allow its customers to track the movements of employees. “When you design a workplace, it’s no longer going to be like ‘Hey, is it cool and fun for my people?’ A major criterion is going to be: ‘Is this place safe and resilient?’ ”
Massachusetts-based health-care software company Athenahealth Inc. is considering checking the temperatures of employees but doesn’t want to track their movements. “We trust our employees,” said Fran Lawler, Athenahealth’s chief human resources officer. “I think our employees would feel like that is a bit invasive.”
Jason M. Schultz, professor of clinical law at New York University, who studies workplace monitoring, predicted the tools might remain after the pandemic. “Employers don’t really have any incentives to remove surveillance once they install it,” he said.