Google uses location data to indicate where compliant and non-compliant home orders

Google uses location data collected from smartphones to help public health officials understand how people’s movements have changed in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. In an early morning blog post on Friday, Google announced its release COVID-19 Community Mobility Report.

The report uses data from the user who opted in to save Location history Working with Google, we help people follow government instructions, evacuate to the right places, and where possible, work from home.

“As the global community responds to the COVID-19 pandemic, public health strategies, such as social distance measures to reduce infection rates, are becoming increasingly important,” the company said in a blog post. “With Google Maps, use Aggregated, anonymous data that shows the congestion of a particular type of location—helps identify when local businesses are most likely to be congested. We have heard from public health authorities that this same type of anonymized aggregated data could be helpful in making important decisions to fight COVID-19. “

Anyone can view a report covering the 131 countries to be launched. In many places, users can search for more regional data and look at reports for individual states, provinces, and counties. When a user selects a region, Google generates a PDF containing the collected data. Google said it chose PDF over webpage because it can be downloaded more easily and shared with workers on site.

Each report contains information about six categories of travel patterns.

• Retail and recreation covering visits to restaurants, cafes, shopping centers, theme parks, museums, libraries, cinemas, and similar places.
• Grocery stores and pharmacies covering supermarkets, food warehouses, farmers markets, specialty grocery stores, drug stores.
• Parks, public beaches, marina, dog parks, squares and other public spaces.
• Transit stations covering subway stations, bus stops, and railway stations.
• A workplace that covers the office.
• Housing that covers people’s homes.

Sample report displayed by brink California, where shelter-in-place orders are active since March 19, saw a sharp decline in retail stores, recreational locations, and transit stations, with a moderate increase in time spent at home .

According to Google, the data covers the last 48 to 72 hours, and the percentage change reflects the difference between this month and late January.

This has happened as technology companies have been asked by government agencies and health authorities to share more data to help combat coronaviruses. Saturday, of Wall Street Journal Reported that mobile advertising company was also sharing aggregated anonymized data with Centers for Disease Control and PreventionTo help authorities understand the spread of the disease and coordinate responses, as well as states and local governments.

Facebook made similar data available to academic researchers.

A Google executive has told me that the program is aimed at helping public health officials need to prioritize their response based on areas of greater need. The report states, for example, that the park has been overcrowded despite being ordered to evacuate to a location, or that the park is properly empty but the transit station is congested. Help the county authorities understand. Then you can consider changing or expanding your message about the need to stay away from the community.

At the same time, the in-depth consideration of changing mobility patterns alone may have limited value in managing a pandemic response. Countries that have been more successful in the fight against COVID-19 have done so by implementing aggressive testing and contact tracking regimes, and using invasive location data. For example, Taiwan Uses location data to create “electronic fences” around isolated citizensMonitor their movements to make sure they are at home.

Google data does not include personally identifiable information or visits to certain categories. There are also restrictions. For example, you may not be able to account for people spending time near a place as part of an allowed outdoor exercise routine.

The company has considered requests from public health authorities to increase the data available for tracking contacts. Use personal locations to identify other people who may have been around them while infected. However, Google’s location data is not granular enough to determine if someone came within 6 feet (the distance at which someone is currently considered at risk of transmission) Contains enough errors to make it unrealistic.

Google also considered using location history data to indicate congestion at hospitals and other healthcare facilities. However, the value of sharing such information is questionable, as location data cannot distinguish healthcare professionals, patients, and visitors.

Google has stated that it will update the data in the report in the future, but has yet to decide.

Separately, Google said it would work with an epidemiologist working on COVID-19 to update Existing dataset Aggregated anonymized information for predicting pandemic pathways.