As the COVID-19 pandemic continues, here are the latest stories on how the outbreak has affected privacy in the U.S.:

• The Trump administration has awarded surveillance firm Palantir a contract to build a U.S. tracking database for COVID-19, Gizmodo reports.
• U.S. Sen. Ed Markey, D-Mass., announced he wrote a letter to Vice President Mike Pence outlining reasonable principles to be considered when planning a national contact tracing plan.
• U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., wrote to Apple and Google over privacy concerns with their potential COVID-19 contact tracing project, asking executives if they'll assume liability "if you stop protecting privacy."
• In an op-ed for Fast Company, former White House Chief Information Officer Theresa Payton advocates against foregoing privacy to combat the pandemic.
• Nextgov reports the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs and Department of Defense joined the Federal Electronic Health Record Modernization program, allowing the entities to share patient records between agencies and with health care providers.
• Officials in Westport, Conn. have foregone a plan to deploy temperature-tracking drones, the Hartford Courant reports.

Editor's note: The IAPP Resource Center has compiled global privacy updates on its COVID-19 Guidance and Resources page.