U.S. authorities are using mobile advertising location data from millions of cellphones to get a better understanding of the movement of Americans during the coronavirus pandemic, according to sources quoted by The Wall Street Journal.

The data is being analyzed by the Centers for Disease Control as well as state and local governments. The goal of using the data is to create a government portal with geolocation data from more than 500 cities that can be used to ascertain whether people are complying with stay-at-home orders. In one example, data gathered from New York City found large numbers of people in a park and authorities were then notified.

The data being used is anonymized, but the fact that mobile ads are being used by the government to track the location of people raises privacy concerns. Although at the moment it’s being used to help fight COVID-19, one natural concern is that now that the door is open to the use of the data, the privilege could easily be abused.

“In the light of the emerging disaster, it may be appropriate to make use of aggregate analytics based on consumer data in some cases, even if data is being gathered secretly or illegally by companies,” privacy researcher and activist Wolfie Christl told the Journal. “As true anonymization of location data is nearly impossible, strong legal safeguards are mandatory.”

The same report states that telcos had not been asked to provide metadata from the government at this time.

The U.S. is not alone with tracking citizens, though other countries obtain tracking data directly from telcos. In Italy, one of the countries hit hardest by the pandemic, the data has been used to help the government observe areas that have been put into lockdown. In South Korea, not only is the government using tracking data but it’s also sending text messages to mobile phone users on where coronavirus carriers have been.

China and Singapore took slightly different strategy, asking people to download an app that tracks their movements as well as provides coronavirus advice.

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