Spying Risks Sidelined in Europe as Phone Data Aids Virus Fight, 22 April 2020

Mobile phones are becoming an unlikely weapon for European governments in their fight against the coronavirus pandemic.

In late March, Belgian authorities turned to the country’s mobile phone operators to see if movement restrictions were being obeyed enough to slow the spread of the pathogen...

Now, as countries from Austria to Germany ease lockdowns, governments want to leverage such data even more to keep the virus in check -- raising some privacy concerns. Unlike Apple Inc. and Alphabet Inc.’s Google, whose tracking software to alert users if they’ve come into contact with an infected person will be voluntary, mobile phone operators inherently need access to a subscriber’s approximate location to route calls or text messages through the nearest cell tower.

[refers to Telenor, A1 Telekom Austria, Orange SA, Telia]