The Verge: “Google uses location data to show which places are complying with stay-at-home orders — and which aren’t”

Google is using location data gathered from smartphones to help public health officials understand how people’s movements have changed in response to the global COVID-19 pandemic. In a blog post early Friday morning, Google announced the release of its COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports.

The reports use data from people who have opted in to storing their location history with Google to help illustrate the degree to which people are adhering to government instructions to shelter in place and, where possible, work from home.

As global communities respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been an increasing emphasis on public health strategies, like social distancing measures, to slow the rate of transmission, the company said in a blog post. In Google Maps, we use aggregated, anonymized data showing how busy certain types of places are — helping identify when a local business tends to be the most crowded. We have heard from public health officials that this same type of aggregated, anonymized data could be helpful as they make critical decisions to combat COVID-19.

Casey Newton

While the pandemic is rapidly spreading through our interconnected world, networking and mobile technologies are also enabling new ways to track and possibly fight the disease. Along this Google initiative, Facebook is also sharing mobile location data with U.S. cities and states to evaluate the effectiveness of social distancing measures – unfortunately only in the U.S.

The data is collected from people who constantly share location history with Google, so it has some bias towards Android users. This could pose problems in areas where people prefer – and can afford – iPhones (United States and Western Europe basically), but also where smartphones have lower penetration rates – older population groups come to mind. Data from China is missing, because Google’s services are officially blocked. With this caveat in mind, I’ve taken a quick look at a couple of countries in the Google report, to compare their responses to the pandemic over the past weeks.

For Romania, the response looks relatively good, with gradually declining activity starting around March 8th, but presence in workplaces has declined much less than retail and outdoor activities, probably because many people don’t have the option of working from home. As one of the hardest hit countries, Italy shows some of the most pronounced reductions, with recreation down almost 95%. The effects appear around March 8th as well, but by then they had already recorded over 5000 cases (compared to Romania’s 15). The reaction in Germany has been slower, starting after mid-March; park visits look largely unchanged, visually at least within natural variations on the graph. The situation looks similar in the United Kingdom, but with more pronounced declines in the second half of the month. Finally India implemented measures only in the last week of March, and their figures reflect a sharp drop in every measured activity.

COVID-19 Community Mobility Reports from Google

Another interesting insight from location data is how income inequality affects the response to social distancing measures, as higher-income people have isolated themselves faster than lower-income, mostly likely because they can afford to work from home and order food online, whereas poor people are forced to continue working to keep their modest income. A similar dynamic works across countries, in places like India for example.