Google will release location data from its users around the world starting Friday to enable governments to measure the effectiveness of social distance measures taken to fight the COVID-19 pandemic, the technology giant said. Reports on user movements in 131 countries will be made available on a dedicated website and will “map movement trends over time by geography,” according to a post on one of the company’s blogs.
Trends will increase & decrease a percentage in visits & # 39; in locations such as parks, shops, homes and workplaces, and not ‘the absolute number of visits’, according to the post, signed by Jen Fitzpatrick, who leads Google Maps, and the company’s chief health officer, Karen DeSalvo # “We hope these reports will help make decisions about how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic,” they said.
“This information can help officials understand changes in essential travel that can make recommendations about business hours or inform delivery services.” Like detecting traffic jams or measuring traffic on Google Maps, the new reports will use “aggregated, anonymized” data from users who have activated their location history. No “personally identifiable information,” such as a person’s location, contacts, or movements, is made available, the post said.
The reports will also use a statistical technique that adds “artificial noise” to raw data, making it more difficult for users to be identified. From China to Singapore to Israel, governments have ordered their citizens’ electronic movements to limit the spread of the virus, which has infected more than a million people and killed more than 50,000 worldwide.
In Europe and the United States, technology companies have started sharing “anonymized” smartphone data to better track the outbreak. Even privacy-loving Germany is considering using a smartphone app to help control the spread of the disease.
But activists say authoritarian regimes use the coronavirus as a pretext to suppress independent speech and increase surveillance. And in liberal democracies, others fear that widespread data collection and intrusion could continue to harm privacy and digital rights.
(This story has not been edited by staff and is automatically generated from a syndicated feed.)
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