Facebook expands location data sharing with Covid-19 researchers

Facebook is adding new data points for researchers fighting Covid-19, including information about whether people are staying at home, and other material that details “the probability that people in one area will come in contact with people in another.”

Facebook shares anonymized, aggregated location information as part of an effort to study disease outbreaks. (REUTERS)

Facebook Inc. is expanding the user location data that the company offers to researchers and non-profits trying to study the outbreak of the Covid-19 coronavirus.

The world's largest social network shares anonymized, aggregated location information as part of an effort to study disease outbreaks, and more than 150 organizations partner with the company to use that data for research. Facebook is adding new data points for researchers fighting Covid-19, including information about whether people are staying at home, and other material that details "the probability that people in one area will come in contact with people in another," the company said Monday.

At Harvard University, researchers are using the information to measure whether government recommended "social-distancing" measures are actually helping to decrease spread of the virus, which has already infected a confirmed 1.3 million people worldwide.

"We are putting in social distancing policies and currently we have no idea what they actually do in terms of subsequent epidemiology of the disease," said Caroline Buckee, an associate professor of epidemiology at Harvard. "Policy makers want to know things like, 'Which of these policies actually work? And how long are we going to have to do them?'"

Facebook will also put a post atop users' feeds in the U.S. directing them to a Carnegie Mellon University survey that will ask users, among other things, to self-report possible Covid-19 symptoms. Facebook says the survey is intended to "help health researchers better monitor and forecast the spread of Covid-19."

"[Researchers] won't share individual survey responses with Facebook, and Facebook won't share information about who you are with the researchers," the company said. Only those 18-years-old or older will see the survey prompt.

Alphabet Inc.'s Google said last week it would publicly release mobility reports that show anonymized data about where people are traveling to help researchers better track the disease. The company's Maps app is used by more than 1 billion people worldwide.