Google and Facebook are using smartphone locations feature to reduce the risk of spreading the coronavirus by helping people avoid crowded places. This is likely in line with a US government request to the two companies and other tech firms.
According to The Washington Post newspaper, the government had asked that tech companies in the US do all they can to ensure people follow the social distancing practice. Their specific request is that they want to use geolocation data from smartphones to see where people are. Thus, large meetings can be detected and broken up before more people get exposed.
Despite the reports, both Google and Facebook have not come forward to confirm that they are working with the government on this yet. However, Google has said that it is looking to keep track of useful data in stopping the coronavirus spread.
Johnny Luu, a spokesman for the company revealed:
“We’re exploring ways that aggregated anonymized location information could help in the fight against COVID-19. One example could be helping health authorities determine the impact of social distancing, similar to the way we show popular restaurant times and traffic patterns in Google Maps.”
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To put people’s minds at ease over their privacy, Luu added that Google would not be sharing a person’s location, movement or contacts.
Also, a White House official at the Office of Science and Technology Policy claims that the government is working on new ways to curb the coronavirus spread. These new ways are insights that can help health officials, researchers and scientists to understand how COVID-19 is spreading.
Tech executives, entrepreneurs and investors formed a task force that already presented many ideas at the White House. Representatives from Apple, Google and Havard University were also in attendance at the Sunday meeting. Ron Conway was there as well.
As of when this article was written, the US had over 8,700+ cases and nearly 150 deaths. It is also fast becoming an epicenter in Europe like the UK and Italy.
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