Privacy and ethics considerations

The Covid-19 pandemic has shown the benefits of sharing data to facilitate decision-making, with many new initiatives being developed to track, contain and predict the spread of the virus. However, the mobile industry recognises that the use of mobile network operator data by governments or agencies raises serious privacy concerns.

To ensure that pandemic response measured powered by MBD protect individuals' right to privacy the GSMA released the Covid-19 Privacy Guidelines. The overarching principles are that to preserve trust, the use of MBD for Covid-19 response must be lawful, transparent ad time-bound.

The Utilising mobile big data and AI to benefit society report illustrates how initiatives which upheld internationally agreed best practices were able to respond society's urgent need create Covid-19 response measures whilst maintaining trust and protecting privacy, even in countries where the regulatory framework is still in development.