Court Upholds NCLA Suit Against Massachusetts Covid Contact Tracing App

BOSTON — Today, the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts issued an order rejecting the government’s request to dismiss NCLA’s Wright lawsuit that challenges Massachusetts authorities for coordinating with Google to automatically install spyware on the smartphones of more than one million Commonwealth residents, without their knowledge or consent, in a misguided effort to combat Covid-19.

NCLA clients, who either reside in Massachusetts or commute there for work, were appalled to learn that the government put an app on their phone without their knowledge, especially one that could constantly track their movements and associations. NCLA argues that automatically installing the Massachusetts Department of Public Health’s app infringed on the Fourth Amendment right to privacy because it interfered with phone owners’ private property and collected information about them. By taking up storage space on phones against their owners’ will, such unwanted installations also constitute uncompensated taking of property in violation of the Fifth Amendment.

The Court today dismissed Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey as a defendant from the case, but allowed these Fourth and Fifth Amendment claims to stand against Department of Public Health officials. NCLA looks forward to further vindicating our clients when the case’s discovery stage begins.

NCLA released the following statement: 

“The Department of Public Health received and is using data collected through its app from over a million Massachusetts residents who did not consent and were not aware of the app being downloaded onto their smartphones. The Court understood that such behavior clearly violates the Fourth and Fifth Amendments, and properly denied the Department’s motion to dismiss.”

— Sheng Li, Litigation Counsel, NCLA

Find more information about the case here.