Mobility analysis to be finalized next week

According to Mart Mägi, director general of Statistics Estonia, the analysis of anonymous data from electronic communications studying people's movements is expected to be finalized during the next week.
Mägi said the purpose of the mobility analysis is to examine how Estonian society has adopted the measures implemented due to the emergency situation.
As a first step, it is planned to analyze the movement of people before and after the establishment of the emergency situation on the basis of aggregated anonymous data.
During a press conference on Friday, Mägi explained that the analysis is based on mobile positioning data from telecommunications companies Telia, Elisa and Tele 2.
"This is not surveillance, analysis will be based on anonymous data. The goal is to map movements taking place in Estonia. The analysis would not be based on real-time data, this is a comparison of data before and after the emergency situation. Working together, we hope to achieve a result during next week," Mägi said.
The mobility analysis was criticized by sworn lawyers Carri Ginter and Sandra Mikli on Friday's Vikerraadio program "Huvitaja".
"Mobile data is one of the more sensitive data around because it can give you more information about a person than you could get by looking through their apartment," Ginter said. According to him, talk of anonymity is not convicing. "If you have one database with anonymous data and another database to match those with, you will know who the data applies to," Ginter said.
"Anonymous data is irreversible, in other words, it is not possible to identify who is behind the data, explained Sandra Mikli. "As the data regarding the mobility analysis is compatible with other data, Statistics Estonia has been sending out mixed messages," she added.
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Editor: Anders Nõmm