Representatives at Google have released that they are making use of location services to track just how many individuals are practicing social distancing. While it is a finable offense in parts of the United States, necessary errands are still allowed, causing more and more people to blindly spread the disease.
In addition to this, most of the preventative measures in place now were not in place during many school’s Spring Break weeks. Location data comes in handy in this case by allowing researchers to track the potential of virus spread based off of cell tower pings from busy areas such as Florida beaches on Spring Break. CNET stresses in this article, that Google does not currently have access to individual’s personal data, and sees each device as an anonymous ping on a map.
LIS 4022 Spring 2020 