These measures include, in a generalized way, taking the temperature of taiwan business mailing list both workers and people who can access their workplaces, shops, educational centers or other types of establishments.
Is it legal to measure the temperature of workers ? Is the worker's consent necessary? Would the right to privacy be violated ? The Spanish Data Protection Agency has published a report 0017/2020 on the processing of personal data (especially health data) that answers these questions.
First of all, it must be taken into account that body temperature is data relating to a person's health , and is therefore especially protected . Secondly, based on the collection of this data, it is assumed that a person is suffering from a specific disease or not (in this case, coronavirus infection). These temperature checks will be carried out frequently in public spaces or at the entrance to work, and data would be revealed to third parties that they do not need to know. In other words, several Fundamental Rights are in conflict .
What does the regulation say?
The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) indicates that any measure involving the processing of personal data must be appropriate , necessary and proportionate to the purpose of such processing.
This means that the company cannot measure the temperature of workers indiscriminately, but rather a series of requirements must be taken into account.
The measures selected must be necessary for the fulfillment of a purpose.
They must be effective in fulfilling this purpose.
Proportional (the least intrusive to the worker's privacy)
They must be limited to the minimum necessary to achieve the intended purpose.
Employers would be responsible for processing this data, as well as the obligation to inform workers about the measures adopted, the use of the data collected exclusively for the intended purpose (prevention of contagion) and the deletion of the data when it is no longer necessary.
Conclusions
The question is whether taking temperature is effective and necessary . Regarding Covid-19 infection, fever is one of the common symptoms. Therefore, taking into account the health alert declared by the WHO, taking temperature could be considered appropriate since most of those infected have presented this symptom.