About Mobility Insights
Decide, don’t guess! Mobility Insights opens new business opportunities. It changes the way we make decisions by providing a deeper understanding of human mobility and by turning invisible and unknown potential into visible and meaningful data.
Use Case
We are in the process of implementing a feasibility study for tracking recreational facilities and green spaces. Using anonymous, aggregated cell phone data, heat maps are created to help the client understand how and when facilities are used by the public. These occupancy figures can be used to make decisions about expanding, eliminating, or building new recreational facilities and to better plan maintenance needs.
Urs Lehner
Head of Business Customers at Swisscom
"We make our business customers fit for the future with innovative solutions."
The observatory of Tourism in Valais (Tourobs) has developed a tool to measure the frequentation of the resorts. From the insights provided by Swisscom, the institute can know daily how many people visit the resort.
Michael Moret
Director Anniviers Tourism
"We were blind and, finally, we will see."
The Federal Office of Public Health (FOPH / BAG / OFSP) is using heatmaps and trip information from the mobility insights platform to see the average numbers of kilometers per inhabitant and per canton as well as density of people in selected public areas.
Philippe Cuendet
VP Data & AI New Business at Swisscom
"Aggregated & annonymized mobility data offers great insights in an ethical way to support government organization in taking the right decisions."
Swisscom Retail uses mobility indicators from the mobility insights platform to completely redesign its shop network. They went from a manual data informed process to a completely automatized dashboard identifying the most promising locations using machine learning algorithms.
Julienne Veer
Sales Strategy Manager bei Shops & Retail Channel Development at Swisscom
"Mobility data helps us design the perfect shop network in Switzerland."
One of the oldest private insurance companies in Switzerland, is using its Natel Go subscriptions to learn more about the work-related trips and Co2 emitted by its employees on its 3 major sites in Nyon, Bern and Zurich.
Res Witschi
Leader Corporate Responsibility at Swisscom
"Thanks to Swisscom mobile data, we support our customers in the carbon footprint and mobility measurement of their employees and help sustainability departments take data-driven decisions to reach their goals."
Our products
We enable our customers to make data driven business decisions based on our mobility indicators. We offer the mobility insights in a standardised and productised manner through the API catalogue in Swisscom data marketplace and through our existing web platform.
Easy-to-use visualisation tool
Swisscom Mobility Insights Self Service
Build your own product
Swisscom
Mobility APIs
Do you have questions?
Yann Steimer
Product Manager Mobility Insights Platform
Blog articles
Privacy
Mobility Insights uses highly anonymised and aggregated data from our mobile network in a way such that it respects everyone's privacy and complies with the data protection laws.
FAQ
What is Swisscom’s Mobility Insights Platform?
The Mobility Insights Platform (MIP) is an online tool that allows customers to view anonymous group statistics on various mobility scenarios. Analysing aggregated mobility data improves our understanding of mobility behaviour in Switzerland and therefore encourages data-based decisions on issues in which the mobility behaviour of the population is a significant factor (e.g. anonymous traffic flow analysis in communities).
What kind of information can our customers access via the MIP?
On the MIP, our customers can view statistics presented in visual form, e.g. the average number of kilometres travelled by the Swiss population in one day, as well as images (heat maps) showing the number of SIM cards used during a certain hour in selected public locations in Switzerland. This data is completely anonymous, meaning it cannot be used to identify individuals. Furthermore, the analysis is not provided in real time. Our customers do not receive location data or any other mobile data from Swisscom, only the aforementioned statistics that are based on this data.
What is the legal basis of the MIP?
Art. 45b of the Telecommunications Act (TCA) forms the legal basis for the MIP and all associated data processing. Under this provision, telecommunications service providers may process the location data of their customers in anonymised form or, with their consent, use it for services that extend beyond the provision and billing of telecommunications services.
What data has to be processed in order to provide the information requested by the customer on the MIP?
The MIP is originally based on the data generated by Swisscom customers when they use a mobile phone (network events). This data comprises the IMSI number of the SIM card, the date and time at which the SIM card interacted with the mobile network and the identification code of the mobile antenna with which the SIM card interacted.
How exactly are the network events processed in order to prepare the data provided on the MIP?
The network events of a given calendar day are automatically extracted from the mobile communications systems the following night. At the same time, the IMSI number is automatically replaced with a hash, a process that doesn’t involve human intervention. The resulting data consists of time, hash identifier and network cell. The location of the SIM cards is then determined by a positioning algorithm, which converts the hashed network events into geographical areas by probabilistic triangulation. Finally, the geographical areas are converted, by a process of aggregation, into quadrants measuring 100 x 100 metres. Taken together, these quadrants cover the whole of Switzerland. After aggregation, each quadrant shows the number of SIM cards that were positioned within or moved through it during a given hour. If the number of SIM cards detected in a Swisscom quadrant is less than 20 (k-anonymity), the MIP does not provide data for that quadrant. The team charged with processing the hashed network events does not have access to SIM card holders’ data.
Is it possible to identify or even monitor a SIM card holder using the data provided on the MIP?
No, this is not possible for technical reasons. The data provided on the MIP is a mere estimate rather than a true representation of reality. For technical reasons, Swisscom can only determine the approximate location of a SIM card. The location identified by Swisscom differs from the actual location of the SIM card by a median of about 130 metres; this median figure represents the radius. This means that a SIM card tracked by Swisscom could actually be located anywhere within a circle measuring 260 metres in diameter and covering an area of around 53,000 square metres. These deviations also mean that a SIM card tracked by Swisscom may appear to be located in a different quadrant than the one it is actually in. As a result, it is technically impossible to identify SIM card holders from this data – all the more so because the data provided is historical information and a k-anonymity of 20 is guaranteed by default.
Is it possible for customers to block their own SIM card to prevent Swisscom from analysing their location data?
Yes. Customers can have their SIM cards blocked (opt out) to prevent the analysis of their location or mobility data via the online customer centre or Swisscom hotline.
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