Democratic senators press Google over privacy of coronavirus screening site

Five Democratic senators sent letters Wednesday pressing Google and the White House over the security of the coronavirus information website that the search giant is developing.

The website was touted by President Trump during an address last week as a screening program — such a site was launched by Verily, another Alphabet company, for the Bay Area on Monday — but now seems likely to be more of an information center.

Google has said the national site will be rolled out later this week.

The lawmakers, led by Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.), are raising concerns over whether patient data entered into whatever system is finally launched will be adequately protected.

“We are concerned that neither the Administration nor Google has fully contemplated the range of threats to Americans’ personally identifiable information,” the senators wrote to Vice President Pence, who heads the White House’s coronavirus task force, and Google CEO Sundar Pichai.

The letters asked Pence and Pichai two series of questions largely focused on what privacy protections are in place and how Google’s effort would be monitored going forward.

The Hill has reached out to Google and the White House for comment on the letters.

The senators pointed to a series of hacks — Quest Diagnostics, LabCorp, Equifax and Capital One — as evidence that sensitive data entered into a coronavirus site could be vulnerable without safeguards.

“To state the obvious, the information Americans enter on this website will be highly valuable to potential hackers, foreign state and nonstate actors with nefarious intent, and other criminal enterprises,” the lawmakers wrote in the letters.