ELYRIA, Ohio — The number of visitors to the Lorain County Metro Parks is up 134%, according to the Executive Director Jim Ziemnik.
The pandemic has people flocking to the parks.
"There is definitely way more people now that the pandemic is going on," said Danitza Ortiz, who visits the park five days a week.
Last year, three million people visited the park system in Lorain County. This year, numbers are expected to well exceed that mark. It's based in part on data collected from the Google COVID-19 Community Report.
"We have traffic counters, monitoring cars in and out. Some of these numbers are generated by the Google Mobility Study which is pinging phones," said Ziemnik.
The data from the report gives a snapshot that shows where people are and aren't going in each county of Ohio because of the pandemic.
"It is not out of the ordinary at all," said Alex Hamerstone with TrustedSec. "People would be shocked if they really sat back and thought about all the ways they are tracked," explained Hamerstone.
A lot of personal data is given away in permission agreements for apps that are downloaded, he said.
"You can opt-out of being tracked but that would mean opting out of a cell phone for most people," Hamerstone said. There are some things you can do to cut down on being tracked, Hamerstone said.
Be careful what free apps and games you download, read permission agreements and know what you are agreeing to; that will help cut down on data being shared, he said.
You can also check and change the settings for your Google and Apple accounts to stop or pause the web activity and location history that is shared with these companies. Review and change your Google account settings here, and your Apple Privacy settings here.
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