Mobile phone tracking begins to map population movement in Spain

THE Spanish National Institute of Statistics has reportedly today Monday started tracking millions of mobile phones in order to map population movements in Spain.

The idea is to analyse how many people there are in every corner of the country and how the population moves around on working days and on holidays. The purpose is to add to information about people’s routines and establish which are the busiest zones. This data could then prove useful in terms of improvements to transport networks, roads and public services.

The institute has according to Spanish press issued assurances that it only has information about how many phones on the Movistar, Orange and Vodafone networks are in a given location and not who the phones belong to. Nevertheless, mobile users can put their phones on plane mode or turn them off to avoid monitoring or contact their mobile phone companies to state they do not wish to included in the database.

This first phase of the institute phone tracking exercise will run until Thursday November 21. There will be further trackings on Sunday November 24, Christmas Day, July 20 and August 15.