A report from the National Tsing Hua University in Taiwan used Facebook’s data to show that travel restrictions reduced the spread of the virus.įacebook’s program is also supplying the bulk of the data for the COVID-19 Mobility Data Network. Separately, researchers in Italy used Facebook’s mobility data to analyze how lockdown orders affect economic conditions and create an economic segregation effect. They found that population movement indeed declined, which led to reduced transmission of the virus. For example, scientists at the Institute for Disease Modeling in Bellevue, Washington used Facebook’s mobility data to study how social distancing measures and a stay-at-home orders have affected movement near Seattle. Scientists have used Facebook’s data in several ways over the last few weeks to study the pandemic. Data is aggregated to protect individual privacy. The company gathers its information from people using Facebook on their mobile phones with the location history feature enabled. It has since expanded to address disease and, most recently, COVID-19.
#Google mobility data free
Facebook’s is the “only source of mobility data in machine-readable format” that is global and free of charge, says McGorman.ĭata for Good started three years ago as an initiative to help track evacuations and displacement after natural disasters. The mobility datasets let researchers look at population movement between two points, movement patterns such as commutes, and whether people are staying close to home or visiting many parts of town.
#Google mobility data license
“Once a researcher signs a license agreement, they can request data through our mapping portal and get it the next day,” she says. “We’re sharing the data in a way that public health researchers can use,” says Laura McGorman, policy lead for Facebook’s Data for Good program. Facebook generates the data in file formats that support epidemiological models and case data. Data for Goodīoth Facebook and Google are providing information about where people are going, but the companies differ in the way they are releasing the information.įacebook, through its Data for Good program, provides mobility datasets and maps directly to researchers upon request. Local government officials can use the data to make informed decisions on travel and social distancing interventions. Such data is vital to public health researchers’ efforts to understand trends in population movement and predict the spread of the disease, which is caused by the novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2. The data comes from users who opt in to location services on the companies’ platforms and is provided for public health use in an aggregated, anonymized way. So, in an effort to help researchers combat the pandemic, the two companies say they are now making their troves of GPS-based mobility data available. And few know our whereabouts better than Facebook and Google. How we move about in our communities-where we go and how often-greatly affects the spread of COVID-19.