Google began to monitor the self-isolation of the population

Google company launched the site social monitoring COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports, which publishes reports on how responsibly (or irresponsibly) people are approaching the importance of maintaining social distance and self-isolation in the midst of the coronavirus pandemic that has swept the entire planet.

Reports are generated based on anonymous data collected using mobile devices and company services about places visited by people, which are divided into 6 categories: retail and recreation, grocery stores and pharmacies, parks, public transport, workplaces and residential premises. The maximum coverage of displayed changes is several weeks, the minimum is 48–72 hours.

The company notes that information about locations visited is collected and reported in aggregate form rather than on an individual level. The company does not collect any other personal data about the user. Google explains that the reports do not reflect the actual number of people who visited certain places, but only display a percentage in relation to data for the previous period. For example, the report for San Francisco County found that between February 16 and March 29, the number of people visiting retail and recreational facilities fell by 72% and parks by 55%. At the same time, the number of people spending time at home increased by 21%.

To collect information, chronology data of visited places is used, which is collected by the Google Maps application. Initially, this function is disabled in the application. Therefore, only those people who decide to use this function are subject to monitoring. If a person does not want to be included in the statistics, then the function can be disabled at any time.

Initially, Google's monitoring for these reports covers 131 countries, as well as specific regions within certain states. Russia is not on the list yet. By the way, similar and even more visual monitoring conducted by Yandex. Its Maps app monitors the level of self-isolation in cities. Real-time service compares the level of urban activity now with a normal day before the epidemic.

As for Google, the company is already working to increase the number of countries and regions, as well as the languages ​​in which reports are displayed. This information, combined with other data collected at the local and federal levels, can be extremely useful for public health authorities to alert the public to the potential for a COVID-19 outbreak in certain areas.

Source: 3dnews.ru