Coronavirus: Facebook to gather information about users' health in attempt to create covid-19 'heatmap'

Users will be able to opt in and Facebook commits to keep information private

A man wears a face mask as he check his phone in Times Square on March 22, 2020 in New York City (KENA BETANCUR/AFP via Getty Images)

Facebook is launching a survey of its users that will attempt to track the spread of covid-19.

The system will appear at the top of the news feed and encourage people to describe their own health so that information can be passed onto researchers.

That data could then help guide responses to the crisis, including allowing the development of a heatmap of reported symptoms that can be used to track where coronavirus could be spreading.

It is part of a series of responses to the outbreak revealed by Facebook as part of its "Data for Good" programme.

As well as asking users to participate in the survey, Facebook will also use its data to help generate maps and charts of how people are behaving under coronavirus lockdown. Co-location maps will allow researchers ot to track where people are coming into contact with each other, movement range trends allows for a picture of the degree to which people are moving around and a "social connectedness index" gathers informaiton to see how friendships span across countries.

Together, Facebook says that it hopes the data will guide public responses to the outbreak, and give information about where authorities should focus next.

It made various commitments about how the information involved will be kept anonymous. In the maps, for instance, individual identities are obscured in the hope that nobody in the data could be identified, and the data shows information at a city level but not the behaviour of specific people.

Google made similar commitments when it made its data from Maps publicly available to researchers. It published that information for the public to read, too, arguing that doing so ensured the company was being transparent about what data it was making public.

For users who are selected to take part in the survey, it will appear at the top of the news feed. Users will have to opt in to take part, and will be taken off the main Facebook website to actually take it.

The survey itself is run by Carnegie Mellon University Delphi Research Center and the data on people's health will allow health researchers to "better monitor and forecast the spread of covid-19", Facebook said. The company hopes the data can be used to plan where resources are needed and eventually how lockdowns could be lifted.

For the time being, the feature is only available to specific users in the US. Facebook will make it available in othe parts of the world if the results are "helpful", Facebook said.

The survey results will also be anonymised. Researchers will not share responses with Facebook, and Facebook will share no individual personal information with the researchers, it said.