Spain will geolocate all citizens during the State of Alarm for the coronavirus

The coronavirus is generating great havoc on society, causing the confinement of dozens of countries around the world. Yesterday the Government of Spain tightened the confinement even more, but it is not the only measure. To control people's movements, the Ministry of Health will be able to geolocate people's smartphones during the state of alarm.

According to the Ministry of Health, it seeks to "understand population movements" and see the "health capacity of each province." The data will be collected by the different operators and reported anonymously. It is not the first time that the Government of Spain does something like this, compromising the privacy of users, despite the 'anonymity' of the data.

Spain will monitor all people during the confinement for the coronavirus

This measure has already been included in the Official State Gazette (BOE). There it is indicated that Health requests different objectives from the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence by virtue of the Royal Decree of the State of Alarm. Among others, it must send the Ministry of Health information on autonomous communities, public hospitals and some private hospitals. All the data provided on the movements of the users will be offered by the National Institute of Statistics.

To entrust the Secretary of State for Digitalization and Artificial Intelligence, of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Digital Transformation, following the model undertaken by the National Institute of Statistics in its study of mobility and through the crossing of data from mobile operators, in an aggregate way and anonymized, the analysis of the mobility of people in the days before and during confinement.

The data controller will be the National Institute of Statistics. Those in charge of the treatment will be the mobile electronic communications operators, with whom an agreement is reached. The National Institute of Statistics, as the data controller, authorizes the operators to resort to other managers in the execution of the provisions of this section.

Source: 20minutos