COVID-19 Community Mobility reports

Google will publish users location data to help tackle against coronavirus

3 years ago

With the coronavirus outbreak worldwide, countries are taking different actions to tackle this pandemic condition. Some well-known companies are also trying to help the government to tackle this critical situation. Recently Google has also taken an important step to help the government.

According to a report, Google will publish the location data of its users to help the government dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic situation. This will enable the government to know how much social distancing is being implemented.

Location data of users from 131 countries will be made available on a special website called “COVID-19 Community Mobility reports”. In this, there will be data of the user’s movement, including parks, shops, home, workplace, groceries, etc. The company says it’ll contain data from the past several weeks up to until the last 48 to 72 hours.

https://www.blog.google/technology/health/covid-19-community-mobility-reports

According to Google, these reports will help in decision making being taken to manage the condition that occurs due to coronavirus outbreak. Google officially said in a statement that, “In addition to other resources public health officials might have, we hope these reports will support decisions about how to manage the COVID-19 pandemic. For example, this information could help officials understand changes in essential trips that can shape recommendations on business hours or inform delivery service offerings”.

The way Google Maps is used to detect traffic jams or to control traffic in the same way, these new reports will provide data of those users who have activated their location history. It has been said in the post that in this report, any user’s data that identifies the person, information about contacts, movements, etc. will not be provided. From China to Singapore and Israel, governments have asked for electronic monitoring of people’s movement to prevent the virus from growing. Smartphone data sharing has been started in Europe and America.

Deepak Kumar

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