Statistics Estonia to start negotiations on resuming mobility analysis
According to the guidelines of the Government of the Republic, Statistics Estonia is starting negotiations with mobile network operators to resume mobility analysis that was conducted last spring. The goal of the planned mobility analysis is to help evaluate the impact of adopted measures on the movement of people, direct communication and surveillance resources in Estonian regions and assess change in the risk of infection. Statistics Estonia used the same methodology for conducting mobility analysis during the emergency situation in spring 2020.
According to Andres Kukke, Deputy Director General of Statistics Estonia, negotiations with mobile network operators were started on Friday, 5 March, and the agency hopes to reach a co-operation agreement by the end of this week.
“As in spring 2020, Statistics Estonia is planning to use aggregate tables of mobile numbers received from mobile network operators. Instead of real-time data of networks’ clients, anonymised aggregate data by region and day are going to be used in the planned analysis. As was the case last spring, the anonymous data cannot be used to identify or analyse the movement patters of individuals. The data are only used to calculate the rate at which Estonian inhabitants stay in place,” explained Kukke.
The government’s expectation is that the mobility analysis allows an overview of the movement of people. It is one of the indicators that the government can use to decide whether, when and how to place further restrictions on social contact in public space.
Background: Mobility analysis in spring 2020
For the mobility analysis, mobile network operators used methodology developed in co-operation with Statistics Estonia, which ensured reliability and comparability.
Each network operator prepared a separate mobility analysis, using anonymous data from their own network as source data. They calculated the main location of each mobile phone number by determining the mobile phone masts that the number was connected to the longest in a 24-hour period. Both average and maximum distance from the main location were taken into account. It was not possible to identify or analyse movement patterns of individuals based on the anonymous historical data. The mobility analysis covered only Estonia and did not show which countries Estonian residents had visited or in which they were staying.
The results were generalised at the level of municipalities and, when possible, at a more detailed level (e.g. by urban regions in Tallinn and Tartu). Statistics Estonia reviewed the aggregate data received from the mobile operators and calculated the rate for staying local for the whole country, which was used to produce results, such as “87% of the mobile phones in XXX area remain local”. The enterprise Positium visualised the mobility analysis results on the Estonian map, available at https://liikumisanalyys.stat.ee/.
For further information:
Triin Küttim
Head of Marketing and Dissemination Department
Statistics Estonia
Tel +372 625 9316