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                  Resarh Service






COVID-19, Digital Surveillance, and Privacy:

Fourth Amendment Considerations



April 16, 2020
As COVID-19 has spread across the globe, countries like South Korea and Israel have employed digital
surveillance measures using cell phone location data, among other things, in an effort to track and limit
the virus's transmission. In the United States, the federal government and some state and local
governments have reportedly begun to gather geolocation data voluntarily provided by the mobile
advertising industry to assess how people are continuing to move and congregate during the pandemic.
Technology companies such as Google and Facebook have also discussed leveraging some of their
aggregated and anonymized location data for similar purposes. Moreover, the recently passed CARES Act
provides, as part of new funding for the Department of Health and Human Services' Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention (CDC), that the CDC must report to Congress within 30 days on the
development of a public health surveillance and data collection system for coronavirus. In light of these
developments, some commentators have speculated about the potential in the United States for more
invasive, obligatory data collection and tracking practices emulating the measures taken in some other
parts of the world.
Actions by the federal or state governments to surveil U.S. citizens in response to the COVID-19
pandemic could raise a host of legal issues, but as one commentator recently recognized, the Fourth
Amendment to the U.S. Constitution may determine the outer bounds of permissible surveillance at the
federal and state levels in this context. This Sidebar accordingly provides an overview of the Fourth
Amendment and certain relevant doctrines and exceptions before discussing how the relevant legal
frameworks could apply to coronavirus-related government surveillance.

Fourth Amendment Overview
The Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution protects against unreasonable searches and
seizures and provides that no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, among other things. The
Supreme Court has recognized that the fundamental purpose of the Amendment is to safeguard the
privacy and security of individuals against arbitrary invasions by governmental officials. Though often
discussed and applied in the context of law enforcement efforts to obtain evidence of criminal
wrongdoing, and though such efforts often must satisfy stricter requirements than in other contexts, [i]t
is well settled that the Fourth Amendment's protection extends beyond the sphere of criminal

                                                               Congressional Research Service
                                                                 https://crsreports.congress.gov
                                                                                   LSB10449

CF-S LegM Sideba
Prepared for Members and


Comm'nittees of

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