US government officials using mobile ad location data to study coronavirus spread

The Verge ^ | 03/29/2020 | Kim Lyons

[BenLurkin]

US government officials are using cellphone location data from the mobile ad industry —not data from the carriers themselves— to track Americans’ movements during the coronavirus outbreak, the Wall Street Journal reports. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, along with state and local governments have received cell phone data about people in areas of “geographic interest,” the WSJ reports.

The goal is to create a government portal with geolocation information from some 500 cities across the country, to help ascertain how well people are complying with stay-at-home orders, according to the WSJ. One example of how the anonymized data was reportedly used: Researchers discovered large numbers of people were gathering in a New York City park, and notified local authorities.

China’s tracking system sends information to law enforcement officials, while Taiwan’s “electronic fence” alerts authorities when a quarantined person moves too far away from their home. And South Korea used cell phone location data to create a public map of coronavirus patients, to track where people may have been exposed.

[bigbob]

Fer cripesake, commercial companies have been doing this for weeks now, I check it every day:

https://www.unacast.com/covid19/social-distancing-scoreboard

[JudgemAll]

wow, the article is talking of 2 different things: aggregate sociological behavior data vs actual spying on individuals

is this really available to the public? spying on your neighbor? Soviet snitch prostitution to government is coming...

[grey_whiskers]

So leave your phone home when you go to a spreader party. BFD. /sarc>

[Artemis Webb]

I’m wondering if the FReepers who holler about the evil of having Alexa in their homes will now be ditching their cell phones also.
Wondering...
Wondering...

[plain talk]

Interesting site. It shows NY with a A grade in social distancing. Great job NY. Keep up the good work!! (sarcasm)

Mid-west gets grade of F. The chart seems to blame mid-west for NY deaths. :-)

[I want the USA back]

How quickly government moves to gain more control over us. You know they won’t use this to detect flash mobs or gang rapes, both perpetrated by one specific specially-privileged victim group. Instead they’ll use it to see if there are more than 3 people inside a legal gun shop, and send the police there to shut it down.

[Paladin2]

Distances in the West just look farther aways when you look at the numbers. A lotta places are quite close.

[IllumiNaughtyByNature]

So rather than 21M people dying in China they all turned off their cell phones to not get tracked?

[GOPJ]

The pentagon needs to look at this type of data too... for slightly different reasons.

[precisionshootist]

"How quickly government moves to gain more control over us. You know they won’t use this to detect flash mobs or gang rapes, both perpetrated by one specific specially-privileged victim group. Instead they’ll use it to see if there are more than 3 people inside a legal gun shop, and send the police there to shut it down."

This is a nation wide Katrina. Government utterly run amuck.

Folks when this is over we need to focus on one thing and one thing only. We need a Constitutional Amendment that will stop any and all future shutdowns and stay at home orders no matter what the threat. Since there is no greater threat to our way of life than our own government this must be codified and ratified into our Constitution. No closing gun stores, shutting down online this or that, stay at home or anywhere else orders or any other such nonsense. At this point we even need to remove any and all provisions for martial law at the fedral AND state levels as a democrat president almost certainly would have used martial law and many people would have been killed on both sides. None of these actions can ever be allowed to happen again.

[nevermorelenore]

Freedom to Assemble ! 🇺🇲