Turkey to use mobile data to track isolation

In scope of measures to curb the spread of the novel coronavirus outbreak, Turkey has launched a brand new project in a bid to monitor citizens who have been isolated due to COVID-19.

The Turkish Health Ministry has actualized the Isolation Tracking Project (ITP) to track the citizens who have been put under isolation and warn them if necessary, the Presidential Communications Directorate said.

The project has started to be implemented with the cooperation of Information and Communication Technologies Authority and all the available carriers.

The ITP aims to control whether citizens, or the relatives of the citizens, abide by isolation rules the state has set out.

If isolated citizens leave their houses, they will receive a warning text on their mobile phones. They will also be contacted immediately via an auto-call and will be asked to return to their isolation locations.

If the citizens continue do not abide by the rules, their violations will be shared with the security units and necessary administrative measures and enforcements will be implemented.

Furthermore, police teams, who are in charge of carrying out controls on the roads, will be able to find out if a person is breaking their isolation, by checking up on their information.

The application will not only monitor the isolated citizens' movements, but will also be able to control the mobility in quarantined regions and thus conduct analyses.

China, Singapore, South Korea and other countries have asked residents to use apps and other technology to track their compliance with quarantines, but privacy activists argue such measures can compromise individual liberties.

The European Union is drawing up common rules for using mobile apps to track...

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