The Flowminder Foundation, a non-profit organization based in Sweden, is using the information generated by mobile telephones to detect cases of Ebola.
According to the organization, the analysis of Call Data Records (CDR) could help to determine people’s movement patterns and so help to track the virus and complement efforts to transfer resources between different countries.
As the data provide a basis for the formation of estimates about the movement of people in the affected region, the researchers at the foundation explained that correct, anonymous use of mobile telephones in West Africa could help to predict where the next outbreaks of Ebola will occur. “This information could help to predict where an infected person will appear,” said Linus Bengtsson, co-founder of Flowminder.
In addition, the information gathered is being used by World Health Organization centers to model the disease and also by centers at Oxford University and Imperial College London in the United Kingdom.
In spite of the controversy that might be generated by the measure, it should be noted that this isn’t the first time the system has been used. In Haiti, after the earthquake in 2010, there was a cholera outbreak across the territory and in an effort to prevent its spread, Flowminder used the technology to track people’s movements and predict where new cases would appear.
“The more we know about what people in the infected areas are doing and their movements, the more we can protect them,” explained Gayton, a member of Medecins Sans Frontieres working in the Mobile Technology Project Sector for West Africa. However, he also said that this information gathering model was a “double edged sword” as it could also be seen as an invasion of privacy.
Bengtsson said: “Even though the information analyzed is completely anonymous, it comes from individual users’ telephones and should be treated as sensitive information from a commercial and privacy perspective.”
In general terms, models constructed from mobile data could also be used to examine the effects of restrictions on mobility between countries, as happened this year at the border between Senegal and Guinea.
“The information offers an understanding of how people react to the restriction of mobility between countries and what effect that has on the mobility of resources and health workers,” said Andy Tatem, a foundation researcher. He added: “With the network operators providing the service to a substantial section of the population of many different nations, the movements of millions of people across space and over time can be measured almost in real time.”
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