Norwegian government uses GPS data from cell phone provider to model coronavirus spread

Norwegian government uses cellular data tracking users’ movements to model the potential spread of coronavirus and anticipate what parts of the country will need medical supplies

  • Norway is using cellular data to track the movements of people in groups of 20 
  • The movement data is used to predict where COVID-19 flare-ups might occur
  • Cell provider Telenor says that because it’s tracking people in groups of 20, the government won’t be able to trace the identity of any one person
  • Learn more about how to help people impacted by COVID

The Norwegian government is using data from cell phone towers to map the likely spread of COVID-19 across the country and determine which regions are likely to need medical supplies.

The project is a partnership between Norway’s Institute of Public Health and Telenor, the country’s largest telecom, which handles around 80 percent of the country’s total data traffic.

Using Telenor’s cellular base stations, the government can track the general location of each active cell phone in the country and map the movements of large blocks of the population.

Norway’s Institute of Public Health is working with Telenor, the country’s biggest cellular provider, to track general population movement and predict what region’s of the country might need medical supplies to deal with a new outbreak

Through its partnership with the Institute of Public Health, Telenor is tracking the movement of people in groups of 20 or more, according to a BBC report

That population movement data is used in a mathematical model along with other currently available public health data about the country’s COVID-19 cases and used to predict how the disease will spread across the country.

‘In our systems there is knowledge about where people are at basically any time,’ Telenor senior researcher Kenth Engø-Monsen told the BBC. ‘So the trick here is to understand how the population is moving on an aggregated level.’

‘So if you understand how people are moving around, then you’re also able to understand how disease is potentially spreading across the country or across the continent.’

The project is being used to make decisions about how to allocate medical resources like ventilators and emergency hospital beds as well as coordinate with local officials in areas projected to see a rise in new cases.

Telenor handles around 80 percent of all Norway's data and says that because it's only giving the government information about people in groups of 20 or more, the government won't be able to trace the identity of any one individual in the group

Telenor handles around 80 percent of all Norway’s data and says that because it’s only giving the government information about people in groups of 20 or more, the government won’t be able to trace the identity of any one individual in the group

It’s also being used to estimate how long to keep different parts of Norway’s school system and economy shutdown to prevent further spread.

‘We can lift, for instance, restrictions, we can open schools and close schools and things like that,’ Birgitte Freiesleben De Blasio, department director of Norwegian Institute of Public Health, said.

‘And we can use the model to inform us on what is the effect of doing that.’

The model is based on similar technology that Telenor used to track the spread of infectious diseases in other countries, including a malaria tracking program in India and a Dengue Fever project in Pakistan.

The data tracking project is based on similar programs Telenor has operated in India to track malaria and Pakistan to track Dengue Fever

The data tracking project is based on similar programs Telenor has operated in India to track malaria and Pakistan to track Dengue Fever

Telenor says that because it only shares data on groups of 20 or more people, that the government won’t be able to trace the identity of any one person.

‘We’re extremely cautious when it comes to privacy and what we’re very afraid of is that individuals can be reidentified from the data,’ Engø-Monsen said.

To date, Norway has had 6,623 confirmed cases of COVID-19 and 139 deaths in a country of 5.368 million.