Mobility data with privacy-preserving aggregation steps have recently been made available by several technology and telecom companies for the purposes of COVID-19 control; however, the datasets are limited and there is no long-term commitment in place for data sharing. Daily aggregated origin-destination data from Baidu86 are being used to evaluate the effect of travel restrictions87 and quarantine measures88 on COVID-19 transmission in China. Analysis of the location data of Italian smartphone users estimated a reduction of 50% in the total trips between Italian provinces in the week after the announcement of lockdown on 12 March 2020 (ref. 89). Google has released weekly mobility reports with sub-national granularity, including breakdown by journey type and destination (such as workplaces and parks), and has made their dataset publicly downloadable90. Apple has similarly released a dataset with daily figures for mobility and assumed method of transport91. There is no standardization of these datasets between providers, however, and not all countries or regions are included in these datasets.
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Tech Thoughts Daily Net News – June 19, 2014
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