Apple is continuing its work to help mitigate the spread of COVID-19 around the world. Apple today released a mobility data trends tool from Apple Maps, which provides insight into social distancing during the COVID-19 outbreak.
The goal with this mobility data trends tool is to offer Apple Maps data that may provide insights to health authorities looking for ways to slow the spread of COVID-19. Apple explains:
Apple today released a mobility data trends tool from Apple Maps to support the impactful work happening around the globe to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. This mobility data may provide helpful insights to local governments and health authorities and may also be used as a foundation for new public policies by showing the change in volume of people driving, walking or taking public transit in their communities.
Apple says the new Mobility Trends Reports aggregate data from major cities and 63 counties or regions. You can use the online tool and search by country, region, or city to see specifics trends for an area. For instance, you can search “United States” to see that driving, walking, and transit are all down by over 60%.
Apple is also allowing people to download the complete data set in CSV form. “You can download the complete data set, which features daily changes in requests for directions by transportation type for all available countries/regions and cities,” Apple explains.
As you would expect from Apple, privacy is at the forefront of the new Mobility Trends Reports. The data is aggregated from Apple Maps and not associated with Apple IDs.
This data is generated by counting the number of requests made to Apple Maps for directions in select countries/regions and cities. Data that is sent from users’ devices to the Maps service is associated with random, rotating identifiers so Apple doesn’t have a profile of your movements and searches.
You can view the full Mobility Trends Reports from Apple Maps here on Apple’s website. Apple will publish new reports daily.
Read more:
- iPhone and Android COVID-19 contact-tracing: Public health authority apps only, can be disabled by region, multiple iOS updates required
- Google and Apple partner on building COVID-19 contact tracing into Android, iOS
- Apple launches informative COVID-19 app and website screener in partnership with FEMA and CDC
- Trump: People have ‘big constitutional problems’ with Apple and Google’s COVID-19 contact-tracing
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