New Office Building Systems Can Track Who You Are, Your Vaccine Status, and Where You Go

There appears to be a number of apps out that can allow employees to upload their e vaccination status, employment information that then allows a touchless building access through the lobby without having to check in with security. These apps allow you to control the elevator to get you to your specific floor, and can monitor where in the building you are at, supposedly to allow management to better optimize the usage of their office facilities. If no one uses a certain number of small conference rooms perhaps convert them to something that gets more usage. If there are areas of the floor that at certain times of the day are unused, perhaps turn off the HVAC, or reduce janitorial to reflect this. If someone is hiding out in the stairwell, smoking or whatever, instead of sitting at their workstation pounding their computer keyboard, maybe send out security to check on them.  Joe Gose of The New York Times 2-16-22 wrote “The New York developer Silverstein Properties introduced a contactless entry system for tenants at 7 World Trade Center in Manhattan that allows employees to use badges stored in Apple Wallet to gain access to office and amenity spaces. And at Deutsche Bank’s new offices in the former Time Warner Center, vaccination status is loaded onto employee badges for entry through its turnstiles.” ‘In addition to the apps, permanent but discreet temperature and body scanners and air sensors in lobbies and elsewhere could become more commonplace, especially if other airborne viruses or more coronavirus variants emerge.’  On February 16, 2022 TheRegistry cited a survey by Density, Inc.  that reported nearly two-thirds (61%) of employees at companies with a workforce of more than 1,000 employees would be concerned about their privacy if their company used camera-based technology in the office to monitor how space is being used