Collaborating with tech companies is key for fighting COVID-19

Scientists are calling on technology companies to work with researchers and governments to help curb the COVID-19 pandemic by sharing their data in a legal, proportionate, ethical and privacy-preserving manner. Writing in Nature , the group from UCL, i-sense, Chatham House, Diagonal Works, Imperial College London and the London School for Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, led by Professor Rachel McKendry (UCL and Director of i-sense EPSRC IRC), says that with access to relevant and vital information, technology companies have an important role to play in ensuring patients and populations are protected. Open data sharing among governments and researchers during the current COVID-19 pandemic has led to rapid online posting of clinical, epidemiological and virological data, which are shaping international public-health strategies. However, digital data from billions of mobile phones and footprints from web searches and social media remain largely inaccessible to researchers and governments. Professor McKendry, said: "Sharing of data in these unprecedented circumstances will have a positive societal impact. Digital trails from web searches and social media could really help us better detect the spread of coronavirus in communities at an early stage, especially where there is no access to testing. It would allow us to evaluate the real impact of public health interventions, such as social distancing, which is essential for informing the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic.