Sources: the US government is in active talks with Facebook, Google, and others to use location data from Americans' smartphones to stem COVID-19's spread

The U.S. government is in active talks with Facebook, Google and a wide array of tech companies and health experts …

Washington Post 2020-03-18

Context & Ripple Effects

The talks reported here are the second step in a rapid escalation: a week earlier the White House had convened Facebook, Twitter, Microsoft, Apple, and Amazon to ask for help on misinformation and tracking the virus's spread, and this story shows that request hardening into something concrete — government use of Americans' smartphone location data. Within two weeks it moved from talks to practice, with CDC and state authorities using anonymized mobile-ad location data to plan their pandemic response.

By early April, [[a:952206|researchers were feeding Facebook's location data to US cities and states as daily dashboards]] measuring whether social distancing was actually working. The arc runs from voluntary cooperation to operational data pipelines — and, per later global coverage of governments using smartphone data, apps, drones, and facial recognition, the US is one instance of a worldwide pattern.

First-order effects

Facebook and Google move from advisory participants in the White House's March meetings to data suppliers, with their aggregated location signals becoming an input to federal and state public-health decisions.
Health agencies gain near-real-time population-mobility visibility they have never had before, without deploying any infrastructure of their own.

Second-order effects

Once CDC and states normalize ad-derived location feeds, every large platform holding mobility data faces pressure to participate or explain why not — participation becomes a de facto expectation rather than a negotiation.
Privacy advocates and lawmakers get a concrete target: emergency-era data sharing sets precedents that will be contested over how long the access lasts and what else it covers.

Third-order effects

If the pattern holds, crisis-driven data sharing becomes the template for how governments access commercial behavioral data — normalized first under emergency, then institutionalized through standing arrangements and regulation that outlast the pandemic.
The episode forces a structural question about consent: data collected for advertising is being repurposed for governance, pushing toward new rules on secondary use of commercial datasets.

The trend: Governments are converting commercial platform data into public-health infrastructure during COVID-19, turning advertising-grade location tracking into an instrument of state response.

Discussion

Vox Sara Morrison on x
The government might want your phone location data to fight coronavirus. Here's why that could be okay.
@tonyromm Tony Romm on x
SCOOP: U.S. govt, tech companies like FB and Google have discussed ways to leverage smartphone location data to aid in coronavirus mapping. Early talks could give way to tools for experts to track social distancing. Me w/ @lizzadwoskin and @craigtimberg https://www.washingtonpost…
@matthewstoller Matt Stoller on x
What we need is what Singapore's gov't has created, which is a government app that lets you see if you've been near someone with #coronavirus. That requires tracking but more importantly it requires TESTING! https://twitter.com/...
@matthewstoller Matt Stoller on x
What do we spend all that money on the ‘intelligence community’ for? They are supposed to be able to track stuff, except that when it's necessary to do so they... can't. https://twitter.com/...
@drewharwell Drew Harwell on x
The U.S. government is in active talks with Facebook, Google and other tech companies about how they can use aggregate data from Americans' phones to combat the new coronavirus, “including tracking whether people are keeping one another at safe distances” https://www.washingtonpo…
@brooklynmarie Brooke Binkowski on x
@TonyRomm @lizzadwoskin @craigtimberg We'll get this before we get tests and respirators.
@mjwhansen Michele Hansen on x
@FoolEdG @TonyRomm @washingtonpost @lizzadwoskin @craigtimberg Unless HIPAA is relaxed, this isn't possible. Exact location data is considered personally identifiable information under HIPAA. The most “anonymized” location data you can use is the first three digits of ZIP codes i…
@johnfmiller86 John on x
Is there anything the US doesn't import from China? I felt it may refrain from importing its totalitarian ideology, but here we are. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@stevecheney Steve Cheney on x
Likely the next new normal: securely stores all your locations—to travel you must auth, then determines whether you came from a hot spot 1-14 days ago based on current outbreak data. The future will be interesting. https://www.seattletimes.com/ ...
@heymatthenry @heymatthenry on x
Please—and I can't stress this enough—don't. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@mtaibbi Matt Taibbi on x
I'm beginning to have an extremely uneasy feeling about the measures being contemplated in response to this crisis. https://twitter.com/...
@tonyromm Tony Romm on x
UPDATED: Google confirms it's been part of conversations, first reported by the Post, to leverage Maps data in coronavirus fight. https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@hotdogsladies Merlin Mann on x
cool cool cool https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@thegrugq Thaddeus E. Grugq on x
Israel's Shin Bet was ahead of the curve with their surveillance, but it seems they won't be alone... https://twitter.com/...
@faineg Faine Greenwood on x
“Facebook populates its maps with the aid of its users, who have given the company permission to collect their location — harnessed via their smartphones — while its app runs in the background.” I don't use FB, but I assume this is an opt-out thing?https://www.washingtonpost.com/…
@alfunk Allie Funk on x
We're going to see a lot of new surveillance efforts imposed now that may remain in place long after the outbreak ends. Here's one for worry: https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@digiphile Alex Howard on x
Altruistic efforts can be repurposed if risk & deaths escalate. If surveillance capitalism technology is repurposed towards tracking the location of Americans in a pandemic, restricting civil liberties may not be far behind. @FCC underreaction to location tracking looks worse now…
@islivingston Ian Livingston on x
Never waste a crisis, they say https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ...
@marypcbuk Mary Branscombe on x
Israel just tasked Shin Bett to do this, with the promise that they won't keep the database of where you are and (they correlate with credit card payments) what you spent. UK also considering. hello surveillance future! https://twitter.com/...
@dangillmor Dan Gillmor on x
They're talking about giving the government location data from basically everyone. You can be certain that it will be used for other purposes than this. The talk about doing this in a “privacy preserving” way sounds like a contradiction in terms. https://twitter.com/...
@blakereid Blake Reid on x
I'd urge folks to focus not only on the privacy harms of this, but to question the supposed benefits. What, exactly, are the feds going to do with detailed location data when many states haven't imposed significant limitations on movement? 1/ https://twitter.com/...
@samuel_wade @samuel_wade on x
One of the million fights we face after all this will be to make sure these shiny new toys go back in the box. https://twitter.com/...
@hypervisible One Ring on x
“Multiple sources stressed that — if they proceed — they are not building a government database.” https://www.washingtonpost.com/ ... https://twitter.com/...
@lhfang Lee Fang on x
Palantir & Clearview AI are among tech firms now in discussion with the government about implementing widespread surveillance tools in response to the coronavirus https://www.wsj.com/...
@kashhill Kashmir Hill on x
Among the tech companies innovating for pandemic surveillance, Clearview AI is offering to help identify people who might have been exposed to coronavirus by analyzing infected people's smartphone photos... https://www.wsj.com/... https://twitter.com/...
@howelloneill Patrick Howell O'Neill on x
Israel PM Netanyahu is moving to tap into “a vast and previously undisclosed trove of cellphone data to retrace the movements of people” with COVID-19 and to find those who should be in quarantine. This data is normally used in counter-terror operations. https://www.nytimes.com/.…
@matt_cagle Matt Cagle on x
Right now, snake oil surveillance vendors are frantically adding “coronavirus” to marketing materials filled with false promises of catching “terrorists,” “school shooters,” and “predators.” https://twitter.com/...
@fightfortheftr @fightfortheftr on x
This is a RED ALERT. More surveillance won't keep us safe from #COVID19. Governments can and should take steps to protect people, encourage social distancing, and slow the spread of the virus. But expanding surveillance just puts us all at risk. https://twitter.com/...
@yaleisp_wiii Yale Isp on x
Since it now seems inevitable advocates of mass surveillance will use the COVID-19 crisis to boost their arguments, it's worth bearing in mind two things. First, the pending US crisis was caused by incompetent management, not a lack of surveillance powers: https://www.washingtonp…

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