Google Offers User Location Data to Health Officials Tackling Coronavirus

Rob Copeland:

Google will help public health officials use its vast storage of data to track people’s movements amid the coronavirus pandemic, in what the company called an effort to assist in unprecedented times.

The initiative, introduced by the company late Thursday, uses a portion of the information that the search giant has collected on users, including through Google Maps, to create reports on the degree to which locales are abiding by social-distancing measures. The “mobility reports” will be posted publicly and show, for instance.

Many taxpayer supported K-12 school districts use Google services, including Madison.