Welcome back for another week of What's Next, where we report on the intersection of law and technology. Here's what we've got for you today:

>> Coronavirus hasn't dismantled privacy protections, yet.

>> Plaintiffs' lawyers ask for a preliminary injunction to declare Uber and Lyft drivers employees, so that they can qualify for paid time off.

>> Ted Frank of the Center for Class Action Fairness says a Google suit has set a new standard for class actions.

Let's chat: Email me at [email protected] and follow me on Twitter at @a_lancaster.

Coronavirus Setting New Privacy Norms?

As countries grapple with the global threat of COVID-19, some are leveraging user location data and tracking apps to model potential contamination paths. China has tapped into its facial recognition tools to track the virus and has also deployed drones that tell people to wear masks. Singapore has launched an app called TraceTogether which uses Bluetooth to determine who could be at risk of infection. And the United Kingdom is reportedly in talks with telecom providers on how to best use location data to stem the crisis.

As governments scramble to fight the virus, legal experts and tech companies are left to figure out how to comply with existing privacy laws and new standards set by the pandemic.

But the coronavirus turning the world upside down does not mean companies can throw out the General Data Protection Regulation and the California Consumer Privacy Act, as well as other privacy protections. Sandra Jeskie, Duane Morris' team lead for the technology, media & telecom industry group, said in an email that businesses under GDPR or CCPA still have to comply with the laws unless the information they are sharing is anonymized or de-identified. And if they're finding a new application for users' personal information, they might have to send out an updated notice. "That notice usually comes in the form [of] a privacy policy and with regard to CCPA, notice must be provided at or before collection of personal information," she said. "So, to the extent a business previously collected personal information for a specific purpose, as reflected in its privacy policy at the time the information was collected, it cannot use that information for a different purpose without notice to the individual."

The GDPR actually has guidance on how personal data can be used in an epidemic or health crisis, said Rohan Massey, who leads Ropes & Gray's privacy and cybersecurity practice. "That's a legal basis for processing personal information," Massey said. "Under the laws we're seeing drafted and the actions we're seeing taken, there are certainly mechanisms within the GDPR to facilitate some tracking of personal information. But an epidemic does not give carte blanche to collect and share everything."

Rohan, who is based in London, said it's more likely that UK telecoms could potentially share statistically deidentified or pseudonymous information, which mitigates some of the risks of processing that data, but still requires it to be treated as personal data.

He said the bigger challenge is when authorities are asking people to check in with apps at certain times to study the spread of contagion via exact location and correlate with contact or proximity.

"As with a lot of data, there are potentials for huge upsides in being able to track individuals. But there's also the potential for the dystopian use of such information," he said.

Uber and Lyft Drivers Demand Paid Sick Leave

Lawyers at Lichten & Liss Riordan are asking the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California to grant two emergency motions for preliminary injunction in employer misclassification suits to declare Lyft and Uber drivers employees, not independent contractors.

The employee status would give the drivers access to state-mandated paid time off and other benefits that lawyers argue could help stop the spread of the coronavirus. The motions assert that the crisis "starkly demonstrates the harm" that classifying Lyft and Uber drivers as contractors has on workers and the general public.

"Gig economy workers are exempted from the shelter in place order because they are providing essential services," plaintiffs' lawyer Shannon Liss-Riordan said in an email. "The least they could get is recognition of employee status so they will be entitled to employee benefits."

In addition to the motions, Liss-Riordan said she's liaised with lawmakers about the exclusion of gig workers from federal sick pay law included in the coronavirus relief legislation. "I spoke to Sen. Ed Markey about this issue last Sunday, and as a result, he sent a letter yesterday (that I worked on with him) to Mitch McConnell and Chuck Schumer, urging that gig economy workers be included in additional emergency legislation," she said.

Earlier this week, Lyft responded to calls from the San Francisco Board of Supervisors for Lyft and Uber to designate drivers as employees and provide paid sick leave. The company said transportation network companies (TNCs) such as Lyft are connecting people to vital services and goods during the pandemic.

"Attempting to force TNCs to adopt an employment model in the midst of this crisis would result in the widespread elimination of work for hundreds of thousands and the immediate interruption of essential services for vulnerable populations," a company spokesperson said. "It will hurt drivers and at-risk communities at a time when they need our services most."

U.S. District Judge Edward Chen is set to preside over the Uber case, and a clerk's notice notified parties to make hearing arrangements through Court Call. U.S. District Judge Vince Chhabria will hear the Lyft case. In a clerk's notice, Chhabria advised that the court will decide whether to schedule a telephonic hearing on the motion after Lyft responds.

Class Actions Without Class Payouts

A federal judge gave final approval to a settlement on claims Google's Street View vehicles infiltrated personal Wi-Fi networks without consent. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer of the Northern District of California said the $13 million cy pres deal, which provides monetary relief to privacy proponents and universities instead of class members, is reasonable because of the "infeasibility of making direct payments to every class member." The settlement calls for 24% of the money to go to the lawyers.

Ted Frank, of the Center for Class Action Fairness and counsel to class member and objector in the case David Lowrey, said Breyer's opinion sets up a very clean legal issue on what it means to be non-distributable and whether every class action can be characterized as non-distributable. Frank said the settlement sets an "unfortunate" standard, and expects to appeal the case to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.

"I think you're going to see a lot more cy pres settlements if this is the standard," he said. "I don't think the Supreme Court will stand for that. It's an unfortunate wealth transfer from everyday consumers to universities with multibillion-dollar endowments."

In his order, Breyer noted that the U.S. Supreme Court hinted that it ought to provide guidance on cy pres settlements in Frank v. Gaos. In the court's denial of a petition of certiorari, also filed by Frank, Chief Justice John Robert wrote that if SCOTUS had picked up that case, it "might not have afforded the Court an opportunity to address more fundamental concerns surrounding the use of such remedies in class action litigation, including when, if ever, such relief should be considered."

Right now, Gaos is back at the district court, which makes the Google case the closest to setting Supreme Court cy pres precedent, Frank said.

On the Radar

Amazon's Hotel California Hagens Berman Sobol Shapiro and Keller Rohrback have filed an antitrust class action against Amazon. The law firms assert that Amazon has cultivated monopoly power through policies that force third-party sellers to offer their products on other platforms at the same prices they do on Amazon. "From the third-party retailers' perspective, Amazon Marketplace is like Hotel California, a lovely place to start or expand an online retail business, but check out from Amazon Marketplace and you can quickly find your business in bankruptcy," the suit says. Read more from Amanda Bronstad here.

A First-of-Its-Kind ICO Settlement Cryptocurrency investors who claim Tezos Foundation violated U.S. securities laws with its initial coin offering have reached a $25 million settlement with the group. The proposed deal follows two rounds of mediation and does not answer whether the digital asset qualifies as a security. Lead counsel at HGT Law and Block & Leviton said they were unaware of any similar securities settlements. Read more from Ross Todd here.

Can Police Seize Your iPhone for 37 Years? Police seized a man's iPhone, but he refused to give the officers his six-digit passcode. Law enforcement used GrayKey, a tool that tries possible passcodes. After a year of trying codes and the phone periodically locking down as a security measure, they still had 960,526 possible passcodes to try, which could take 37 more years. While a recent ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit found that police can't keep phones for several decades, it's possible that they can hold onto them for a very long time. Read more from David Horrigan here.

 Thanks for reading. We will be back next week with more What's Next. Wishing everyone a safe, happy and healthy quarantine.