Reliable information on the movements of people is key to restricting the spread of the coronavirus. Telia’s location data service provides anonymized information on the movements of the masses to support authorities’ decision making. Today, Telia has provided the Finnish Government with a customised version of the service for three months.

“We wanted access to the information so that we could monitor the impact of the decisions of the government. The information is used as part of the overall situation status reporting that supports management,” says Director of Government Security Ahti Kurvinen.

Telia provides the Finnish Government with continuously updated information on movements between municipalities and provinces. This is particularly important so that authorities can make as good decisions as possible to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

“Reliable networks play a key role in this incomparable crisis. Our networks also produce vital information that allows society to react to the situation based on the best possible knowledge,” says acting Vice CEO Heli Partanen of Telia Finland.

“With our service, we can contribute to controlling the situation with the coronavirus and support authorities with knowledge-based management. We have rapidly tailored a report on top of our standard Crowd Insights product, specifically suitable for this exceptional situation.  If this proves useful for the Finnish Government we can offer this report to the other Nordic countries as well.”, says Petri Seppänen, Head of Business Development, Telia.

Anonymized information on the movements of the masses
Telia Crowd Insights is based on mobile network data from Telia’s network. All data is anonymized and aggregated automatically before use to protect personal privacy and can never be traced back to an individual. The only thing analyzed is movement patterns for groups, disconnected from individual and person.

“We collect the information from a large geographical area, which makes it impossible to identify individuals. After this, the fully anonymized and aggregated data can be expanded into views with which decision-makers can draw accurate conclusions on the movements of the masses from”, says Petri Seppänen.