Norway Uses Mobile Network Data to Track People’s Movement and Model Virus Spread

Norway’s largest mobile network operator is sharing data with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health to help track the spread of the virus and build mathematical models that allow authorities to act with high specificity in each area.

Tracking people with the help of their phones seems like the obvious choice in a global pandemic, but it also raises privacy questions. The truth is that all telecom operators have direct access to a lot of private data, including movement and location. Still, these are usually made available to law enforcement, for example, only after a warrant is issued.

Now, with the same function becoming essential, some privacy issues melt away in the face of a public emergency, such as the COVID-19 pandemic. In Norway, Telenor is the largest mobile network operator, and 80% of mobile data passes through its infrastructure. The company is working with the Norwegian Institute of Public Health, sharing that wealth of data for a worthy cause.

“In our systems, there is knowledge where people are, at basically any time, so the trick is to understand how the population is moving on an aggregated level,” said KenthEngø-Monsen, a senior researcher at Telenor in a BBC report. “If you understand how people are moving around, then we can understand how the disease is spreading across the country or the continents.”

The data provided by the company is then combined with other metrics related to the disease, and fed into a mathematical model that allows researchers to make predictions and simulate the spread of the virus. Depending on the results, the government can lift restrictions, open schools or close schools.

Telenor only counts groups of people larger than 20 because they believe this makes it extremely difficult to identify a single individual.

Recently, Google and Apple announced a partnership to implement a conventional Bluetooth technology that would allow much easier contact tracing, with their respective APIs and apps coming in the coming months.

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