Estonia studies mobile geolocation data to analyse movements

Estonia's Government Crisis Commission has instructed the state statistical office, Statistics Estonia, to use mobile geolocation data from companies such as Telia, Elisa, and Tele 2 in order to study people's movements to prevent the spread of COVID-19. Statistics Estonia hoped to launch the project during the week of March 24, 2020. Mart Mägi, the director general of Statistics Estonia, said the intention was to analyse people's movements before and after emergency measures were implemented, and that, if the telcos agreed it was feasible, data processing would take place only within Statistics Estonia's secure environment. The data protection inspectorate has agreed that this tracking is legitimate as long as the data is not personalised and it is used only for the purpose of providing generalised results.

Source: https://news.err.ee/1068209/statistics-estonia-to-study-people-s-movements-during-emergency-situation 

Writer: ERR
Publication: ERR