Employees say Marc Rotenberg put their health at risk and undercut EPIC's message

A chief critic of the tech industry's attempts to track coronavirus patients went to work and held meetings with employees after his doctor directed him to take a test for COVID-19 that subsequently came back positive. Marc Rotenberg, the president and executive director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center, acknowledged in a memo to his staff and his board that he should have quarantined and alerted his staff that he was taking a coronavirus test on March 9, instead of continuing to work alongside them for two days. But Rotenberg's apology hasn't quelled the anger of some EPIC employees, who say he not only put their safety at risk, but also undermined their organization's resistance to invasive coronavirus surveillance. Internal documents and interviews with several current and former employees reveal that this incident has sparked an uprising within EPIC's small team of about a dozen people, with several employees resigning — including Rotenberg's deputy, Mary Stone Ross — following Rotenberg's dual revelation that he had COVID-19 and that EPIC was facing funding difficulties. Others have written to EPIC's board, asking for substantive changes to the organization's management structure.