Virgin Media O2 Business has been selected by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) as a strategic partner to provide mobility data. The anonymised data will be used to support UK Government work at national and local levels, providing insights that reveal population dynamics, travel patterns, and other movement trends.
From today, mobile network insights from Virgin Media O2 Business’ anonymised and aggregated data service, O2 Motion, will be available on the Integrated Data Service (IDS). The IDS is a cloud-based cross-government data sharing service delivered by ONS, to enable faster and more efficient decision-making across key policy areas.
The IDS is the first data sharing platform of its kind, acting as a collaborative service that enables co-ordinated data analysis to better inform policy decisions made at local and national levels. Accredited researchers can access O2 mobility findings on the IDS, eliminating the need for additional data agreements and providing a more cost-effective solution for government users. Integration of O2 Motion mobility insights into the IDS will allow users to harness the power of data to address complex societal challenges facing public health, regional growth, climate change, jobs and skills.
Beyond the IDS platform, O2 Motion data will also be integrated with ONS surveys and administrative data sources to create a series of future publications covering topics like small area population estimates. These will be accessible on the ONS website as part of a regular release, which will be publicly available. With access to topical publications and weekly movement data updates, the IDS will empower policymakers, researchers, and the public to make informed decisions that drive positive outcomes across various domains, contributing to a smarter, more connected future for the UK.
Currently operating in public beta, the IDS platform and data releases will scale at pace over the coming months with a planned pipeline of additional and transformational capability, data, projects and users onboarded. The O2 Motion data is already available on the platform and will be updated on a weekly basis to enable real time analysis.
Geoff Wappett, Head of AI and Data Insights at Virgin Media O2 Business, said: “We are proud to extend our partnership with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) and to integrate our aggregated and anonymised O2 Motion data into their Integrated Data Service (IDS). Generated from billions of daily network events, our mobile data will provide governmental organisations and officials with reliable information to inform their work addressing major societal challenges at pace. Beyond numbers, the IDS platform and our wider work with ONS will ensure quality insights are easily accessible to support data-driven decision making.”