European mobile operators share location data for coronavirus fight in Italy, Germany and Austria

Carriers will share anonymous, aggregated data with health authorities in three European countries to help monitor lockdown compliance

There will be no individual tracking, which would be illegal in Europe

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A shop vendor shows a publication about the virus during the coronavirus emergency, Rome, Italy, 18 March 2020. Photo: EPA-EFE

Published: 9:35am, 19 Mar 2020Updated: 9:35am, 19 Mar 2020

Mobile carriers are sharing data with the health authorities in Italy, Germany and Austria, helping to fight coronavirus by monitoring whether people are complying with curbs on movement while at the same time respecting Europe’s privacy laws.

The data, which are anonymous and aggregated, make it possible to map concentrations and movements of customers in “hot zones” where Covid-19 has taken hold.

That is less invasive than the approach taken by countries like China, Taiwan and South Korea, which use smartphone location readings to trace the contacts of individuals who have tested positive or to enforce quarantine orders.

In Germany, where schools and restaurants are closing and people have been told to work at home if they can, the data donated by Deutsche Telekom offer insights into whether people are complying, health tsar Lothar Wieler said.

“If people remain as mobile as they were until a week ago, it will be difficult to contain the virus,” Wieler, president of the Robert Koch Institute, said on Wednesday.

Germany is entering the epidemic’s exponential phase, Wieler added, warning that without progress in reducing person-to-person contacts, as many as 10 million people could be infected in two or three months.

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