I saw a Bloomberg News report that officials in Austria and Italy are seeking (aggregated, anonymized) users’ location data from cellphone companies to see if local and national lockdowns are effective.
It’s an interesting idea that raises some possibilities for US officials and tech companies to consider to combat the crisis in the US. Caveat: these are very preliminary thoughts.
Cellphone location data from a phone company is OK but imprecise about your movements. It can show where you are typically in a mile or half-mile area.
But smartphone app location is much more precise since it uses GPS, not cell towers to show movements. Apps with location services can show people’s movements within meters, not half-mile, like cell towers.I suspect 90%+ of smartphone users have GPS location services on (Google Maps, Facebook, Yelp, etc.). App companies have rich datasets of daily movements of people.
Step 1 – App companies isolate and share location trends with health officials
This would need to be aggregated and anonymized of course. Tech companies with health officials should, as Balaji Srinivasan says, identify red and green zones. The point is not to identify individuals but make generalizations about whether a neighborhood or town is practicing good distancing practices.
Step 2 – In green zones, where infection/hospitalization are low and app data says people are strictly distancing, COVID-19 tests.
If people are spending 22 hours not moving except for brief visits to the grocery store and parks, that’s a good neighborhood. We need tests distributed daily in non-infected areas, perhaps at grocery stores and via USPS and Amazon deliveries. As soon as the tests production ramps up, tests need to flood into the areas that are healthy. This achieves two things:
- Asymptomatic people who might spread can stay home.
- Non-infected people can start returning to work and a life of semi-normalcy of movement with confidence that others who are out are non-contagious.
Step 3 – In red zones, where infection/hospitalization is high and people aren’t strictly distancing, public education and restrictions.
At least in Virginia, there is county-level data about where the hotspots are. I expect other states know the counties and neighborhoods that are hit hard. Where there’s overlap of these areas not distancing, step up distancing and restrictions.
That still leaves open what to do about yellow zones that are adjacent to red zones, but the main priority should be to identify the green and red. The longer health officials and the public are flying blind with no end in sight, people get frustrated, lose jobs, shutter businesses, and violate distancing rules.
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