| Hey everyone, it's Natalia. After weeks of sheltering in place, governments and offices are starting to devise plans to get society back to normal. Many of those plans are likely to involve the use of a novel, and controversial, technology: remote fever detection. Companies that develop temperature scanning tools say they're seeing a spike in demand since the outbreak of the pandemic. Poland's Pragmasoft, for instance, says it has fast-tracked its scanning technology, called Feverguard, and already has local pre-orders plus interest from potential clients in the U.S. and Serbia. Flir Systems Inc. saw its stock jump as much as 16% on Monday after Reuters reported that Amazon.com Inc. plans to use thermal cameras at warehouses and at Whole Foods locations. And Seek Thermal Inc. says it has seen a surge in demand and inquiries, including from Fortune 500 companies. In the coming months, temperature scanners are likely to compliment other forms of monitoring—including police drones and contact tracing—in the arsenal of surveillance technology institutions are using to keep infected people from spreading the disease. High fevers are a common symptom of Covid-19, and unlike traditional thermometers, thermal imaging cameras remove the need for human contact and work faster than manual readings. They're likely to show up in places like hospital waiting rooms, government buildings and workplaces in the post-lockdown world. "Having a system in place to tell if someone has a fever or not is going to help them go back into society and be comfortable sitting at a restaurant again, knowing that no one there has a fever," Chris Ciabarra, co-founder of Austin-based startup Athena, said in an interview posted to the company's website. Athena has developed thermal imaging technology to detect guns concealed under clothing and is now using the same system to detect fevers, alerting customers if someone's temperature is above 99.5 degrees Fahrenheit. Similar solutions have already been rolled out in China, where Baidu Inc. and Megvii Technology Ltd.'s artificial intelligence-powered temperature screening systems dot different locations throughout Beijing to flag possible victims. Such systems aren't a panacea though. As with facial recognition, remote fever detection raises potential concerns around accuracy, bias and privacy, particularly if it's linked with other identifying factors, civil liberties advocates say. Some people have naturally elevated temperatures or show fevers due to other non-infectious illnesses. Others who have the virus are asymptomatic. As with all sensitive technology—the inherent risk depends on how it's built and how it gets used. Thoughtful regulation could play an important role in setting standards, but that's unlikely to come in time as governments scramble to get their economies back up and running. —Natalia Drozdiak | 
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