Against the spread of COVID-19, a new proximity detection device for CERN personnel: the 'Proximeter'.

Fast and complete contact tracing is a recognized means of breaking the chains of contamination of COVID-19. Since the beginning of the pandemic, this tracing has been done manually by the medical service based on the memories we may have of our movements and the people we met.

This approach is time consuming and does not guarantee perfect traceability, so starting this week you will be able to start seeing people wearing a 'Proximeter' in a pilot trial. The full deployment of the Proximeters will take place starting from January.

The generalized wearing of the Proximeter aims to improve contact tracing on CERN site. Its main objective is to help the medical service and all of us to protect the health of all CERN community. 

The Staff Association has had numerous and dense discussions with both the Management and the Data Protection Officer (ODP) and its position has always been very clear:

  • While the Staff Association is extremely committed to the principles of protection of our personal data as defined in the OC11
  • It can only support any action aimed at protecting the personnel and thus the Organization.

Therefore, the Association has listened with great attention to the comments of the ODP and requested during the last meeting of the Standing Concertation Committee in November, the commitment that the data collected will only be used for the sole purpose of tracing contact cases, a commitment which was made by the Management.

An update of the FAQs on these pages as well as a training course on the operation and use of the proximeter will also be available in January.

The use of proximeters will be suspended as soon as the pandemic will be under control.

The article published in the Bulletin by Management in a near future will provide more technical information on the Proximeter.

Even though no sanctions are envisaged in the event of non-compliance with the wearing of the Proximeter, as the Management, we are encouraging everyone to wear it as soon as it will be available. 

The first mission of this equipment remains the protection of our health, let's think about it!

by Staff Association