This guide will be of particular interest to designated project managers within statistical offices who may read the roadmap in full, using the steps as a practical guide, and share relevant information with decision-makers throughout the process of accessing privately-held data.
Extensive materials in this field have explored how mobile network data can be used, focusing on the technical and methodological aspects of data sharing. One such example is the 2019 Handbook on the Use of Mobile Phone Data for Official Statistics by the UN’s Global Working Group on Big Data for Official Statistics (PDF) and subsequent guides on the use of mobile phone data for statistical fields such as tourism, population, migration, information society, transport, and disaster response.
Eurostat has published extensive guidance material for tourism statistics as well as now developing an open-source pipeline. Another is the FlowKit platform, developed to guide governments in responding to COVID-19. These resources, to different degrees, focus on the necessary technical aspects of data sharing. However, few existing resources address as their primary focus the non-technical aspects of setting up data sharing projects—or the barriers at this point which cause many projects to stall or fail to get off the ground.
This publication was prompted by demand from national stakeholders for straightforward guidance on embarking on the initial steps of discussions to use privately-held mobile network data for statistics. The format follows a roadmap across a series of steps on the route to data access. While there is no right path to accessing data, this guide lays out a streamlined and efficient route.
The guide features case studies of countries that have seen success in their path to accessing data. It builds on the questions raised and information elicited from the combined years of experience of the Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data (Global Partnership) and Positium working with countries on gaining access to privately-held mobile network data, including online and in-country trainings, workshops, and consultations. The guide benefits from a series of virtual trainings on mobile network data access, organized by the Global Partnership and led by Positium, with 18 countries in 2023. This guide uses information from these trainings as reference points for a readiness assessment (laws, capacity, collaborations etc) of countries when it comes to accessing mobile network operator data.
The guide compares and contrasts the routes that countries have taken to access privately-held mobile network data, explores the incentives in each case for private companies to engage with governments, and poses questions and challenges for countries interested in embarking on this path with novel sources of privately-held mobile network data. It explores the opportunities and challenges introduced by new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI), with a focus on new sources of data through innovative models of access and sharing.
Core resources for the publication:
The Global Partnership for Sustainable Development Data’s training program, “Mobile Network Operator Data: Effective and ethical access and use” for NSOs, telecom regulators, and mobile network operators in 18 countries, held remotely in 2023.
The Global Partnership’s engagement in countries to develop capacity for data sharing among public stakeholders.
World Bank-ITU Global Data Facility Mobile Phone Data for Policy Program's Theory of Change and Maturity Framework, whose development was supported by Flowminder, setting the scene for the program applicant countries starting to access and use mobile phone data to improve national data systems. Both are available on GitHub for free.
Mobile data analytics company Positium's 20 years of work in the field of MPD for statistics.