Movement decreases tracked by phone data - good tool or invasion of privacy?

I recently had a friend send me an article about this social distancing scoreboard that Unacast, a company that collect and analyzes phone GPS data, put out.  The premise of this scoreboard is that it shows the decrease in movement of individuals since the start of the COVID-19 outbreak.  Basically, it identifies who has complied with the social distancing order.  For instance, a city that has heavy rush hour traffic, such as Boston or LA, would have noticebly less travel if those same individuals were then to work from home and not commute.  This company went as far as giving each state a grade on how they were doing.

The district of columbia (D.C), Nevada, New York, New Jersey and Alaska are the top five states right now, all scoring an A on this scoreboard.  An A rating indicates a greater than 40% decrease in movement in the state.  This is meant to show that these states are taking the shelter-in-place suggestions more seriously than others.  My state, MA, has also received an A rating - keep up the good work!!

Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming, on the other hand, are the bottom five states on this metric.  Wyoming is the only state to receive an F so far, meaning that they have had a <10% decrease or even an increase.

The United States, as a country, has received a C rating, with a decrease of 20-30% of movement.

This new rating system has some people worried about the idea of personal privacy.  Many individuals have no idea the amount that there smart phones are tracking them or selling their data to companies.  The agreements, often found when downloading an app to your phone, include much of this information... but no one ever reads the fine print.

You can read the full Washington Post article that I was sent about the topic here.

-Vicky