New Important legislation has been introduced to ensure that contact tracing in relation to COVID-19 achieves its public health goals and is not weaponized against communities of color. State Senator Gustavo Rivera and Assemblymember Richard Gottfried, chairs of the Senate and Assembly Health Committees, introduced the bill to ensure confidentiality of contact tracing data and prohibit access by law enforcement and immigration enforcement.

 

Rivera said he was honored to have worked with Neighborhood Defender Services, Center for Community Alternatives, The Bronx Defenders, and the New York Civil Liberties Union in drafting the new bill, based on powerful testimony he heard at the joint legislative hearing held in May on the disproportionate impact of COVID-19 on minority communities. “This legislation would ensure contact tracing data cannot be used for anything other than protecting the public’s health and stopping the spread of COVID-19,” he said.

 

Meanwhile, Justine Olderman, Executive Director of The Bronx Defenders, said, “In the midst of an unprecedented public health crisis, our #1 priority should be the health and safety of all New Yorkers”. She added, “COVID-19 has already caused disproportionate harm to low-income communities of color. The contact tracing process is essential for helping this state recover, but it cannot be used to further target and punish communities that have already borne the brunt of this pandemic. For contact tracing to work, lawmakers must guarantee that it is purely a public health tool – not one of law enforcement and ICE.”

 

Civil rights, health care, and privacy advocates, public defenders, and health care providers are urging New York’s legislature to pass the bill in the coming week as part of a larger package of police accountability and racial justice legislation.

 

They said the events following the death of George Floyd laid bare the distrust and fear of law enforcement that is felt so acutely within Black and brown communities. They said that allowing law enforcement to access and weaponize contact tracing data would disproportionately impact communities of color who have already borne the brunt of the COVID-19 pandemic as well as abusive enforcement of social distancing.

 

According to Center for Community Alternatives, the use of contact tracing by law enforcement is already occurring in other states. In Minnesota, police are said to have used contact tracing to track protesters. This assertion alone will likely have a chilling effect on actual COVID-19 contact tracing.

 

In order to be effective, contact tracing requires widespread participation. If individuals fear that participating in contact tracing will expose them or their loved ones to ICE enforcement or criminalization, they will simply choose not to participate. The public health goal of contact tracing is to stem the spread of COVID-19, and thus requires legislation that prohibits law enforcement or immigration enforcement from accessing contact tracing data.

 

“Black communities are bearing the brunt of two pandemics: COVID-19 and police violence,” said Katie Schaffer, Director of Advocacy and Organizing at Center for Community Alternatives. “In our efforts to stem the spread of COVID-19, we cannot create a new treasure trove of data for law enforcement or immigration enforcement to further target and criminalize communities of color.”