The Secretary of State for Digitization and Artificial Intelligence, attached to the Third Vice Presidency of the Government and Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, has promoted, in collaboration with the InsNational Statistics Institute (INE), a mobility study to analyze anonymous and aggregated data on population displacements for the duration of the health emergency and for the time necessary to restore normality, thus contributing to more efficient decision-making based on the data.
DataCOVID has a first pilot in the Valencian Community and will allow an estimation of the mobility of the Spanish population during the period of application of the containment measures in relation to a normal situation.
The objective is to analyze the effect of the measures on the mobility of the population, identifying if movements between territories increase or decrease or if there are areas where there is a greater concentration of population, to contribute to better management decision-making of the health emergency.
The data, ally to manage the response to the pandemic
DataCOVID uses the possibilities offered by big data to analyze large amounts of information and draw useful conclusions, thus gaining efficiency for evidence-based decision making, more coordinated and adapted to each territory.
The study does not track individual movements, but uses anonymous and aggregated mobile device positioning data, provided directly by operators and removing any personal information, without individually identifying or tracking phone numbers or headlines.
By not using personal data, and using only anonymous and aggregated data, this study does not conflict with the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD) or the Organic Law 3/2018 on the Protection of Personal Data and guarantee of digital rights, and follow the guidelines set by the Spanish Agency for Data Protection.
In addition, the current health regulations protect the competent authorities to use data for research purposes in exceptional situations and serious for public health such as the current one. The data controller will be the National Statistics Institute.
The study will cover the entire national territory, dividing Spain into some 3,200 mobility areas, which identify population groups of between 5,000 and 50,000 inhabitants. The position data analyzed will allow us to have a sample of more than 40 million mobile phones throughout Spain.
With DataCOVID it will be possible to know if, after the entry into force of the social distancing measures, the movements of the population between territories increase or decrease, if there are areas with a greater agglomeration or affluence or if there are areas with a high concentration of population in relation to their sanitary capacity.
