The use of location-based smartphones to track Covid-19 is becoming more and more common, and the US appears to be no exception. The Wall Street Journal sources say federal (through the CDC), state and local governments are getting mobile ad location data to plan their response.
The anonymous information is helping officials understand where people are still congregating in significant numbers (and thus at risk of spreading the coronavirus), how well they are following stay-at-home orders, and how the virus has affected retail.
According to one whistleblower, the goal is to create a location data portal for 5 US cities. It is assumed that the CDC receives data as part of the COVID-19 Mobility Data Network project, coordinated by experts from Harvard, Johns Hopkins, Princeton and other American universities. Neither the CDC nor the White House commented on this information.
Such actions could be useful to authorities planning further measures to contain the outbreak, for example, by specifically discouraging people who do not wish to stay at home from visiting parks or businesses. At the same time, there are clear privacy concerns. While the data should in theory be anonymous, there are concerns about abuse of power.
Excessive protective measures against Covid-19 can have unforeseen consequences if people's data is handled too loosely, especially if the practice continues after the end of the pandemic - for example, to combat rallies and other undesirable events for the authorities in power.
Source: 3dnews.ru