CDC tracked 20+ million US phones to monitor COVID lockdown compliance says new report The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention headquarters in Atlanta. (Dreamstime/TNS)
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The U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) purchased access to a vast trove of data collected from the phones of millions of Americans, to monitor overall compliance with COVID-19 lockdown orders throughout the country.
VICE first reported on the CDC’s actions after obtaining internal agency documents through a freedom of information act (FOIA) request. The CDC documents state the database is “derived from at least 20 million active cellphone users per day across the United States” to provide a geographically representative sample to study lockdown compliance.
According to VICE, the documents specifically show the CDC used the data to monitor curfew compliance. A 2021 document states the data “has been critical for ongoing response efforts, such as hourly monitoring of activity in curfew zones or detailed counts of visits to participating pharmacies for vaccine monitoring.”
The CDC reportedly purchased the commercially available data from a company called SafeGraph. The company gave the CDC access to one year of data for $420,000.
