How one researcher is using Facebook's anonymized data sets and new colocation maps to identify social distancing habits
Facebook's mapping tools are helping researchers in California track whether people are following social distancing orders. — As the COVID-19 outbreak continued … Tweets: @emilydreyfuss , @issielapowsky , and @timgrieve Tweets: Emily Dreyfuss / @emilydreyfuss : Facebook is sharing anonymized, aggregated data with researchers in California to help public health experts measure if people are actually social distancing https://www.protocol.com/... Issie Lapowsky / @issielapowsky : Facebook *is* sharing data on social distancing (ie. Mobility patterns) in California with researchers, as I reported earlier today https://www.protocol.com/... They said they've gotten no requests from White House and don't share data with governments https://twitter.com/... Tim Grieve / @timgrieve : In California, Facebook data from your phone will tell public health officials whether social distancing is actually happening — and where. https://www.protocol.com/...
Context & Ripple Effects
This story extends a line Facebook started a year earlier, when it released population density and movement maps for nonprofits and universities studying infectious disease spread. The pandemic turned that civic-data project into an operational one: the same anonymized colocation maps are now being queried by California researchers to check whether residents are actually complying with social distancing orders.
First-order effects
- California public health officials gain a near-real-time compliance signal built on Facebook's aggregated location data, letting them judge whether distancing orders are working without waiting for case counts.
Second-order effects
- Commercial players move fast on the same opportunity — within a week, Unacast launched its Social Distancing Scoreboard grading US regions using app location data, turning crisis measurement into a competitive analytics market.
Third-order effects
- Facebook formalizes the pipeline with dedicated Data for Good Disease Prevention Maps, normalizing platform-held location data as public-health infrastructure — a precedent that will pressure regulators to define when aggregate mobility data crosses into surveillance.
The trend: Platform companies are becoming de facto government data suppliers during crises, with privacy guardrails set by corporate policy rather than law.