Rebekah D. Jones

Rebekah D. Jones (born July 1989) is an American data scientist, geographer, and whistleblower specialized in Geographic Information System (GIS) data science to track hurricanes, epidemiology, and climatology. In September 2018, she became a GIS Analyst at Florida Department of Health in Tallahassee. From November 2019 until May 2020, Jones was geographic information sciences manager for the Florida Department of Health, where she created a geospatial presentation for Hurricane Michael. She also participated in tracking the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida.

Jones made headlines in May 2020 after alleging that the Florida Department of Health pressured her to strategically align COVID-19 case data with Florida's goal to reopen the state. State records indicate that Jones was fired for violating Health Department policy by making public remarks about the data. Despite protests by Nikki Fried, Florida Commissioner of Agriculture and Consumer Services, Jones was not reinstated. The Urban and Regional Information Systems Association of GIS professionals wrote a letter to Ron DeSantis, governor of Florida, stating among other things, "While all the facts have yet to be made public, we are concerned that the actions taken potentially put the public at risk and prevented a certified GIS professional from following the Code of Ethics that guides all GIS professionals working in government, non-profit and private sector positions." The American Association of Geographers also wrote a letter to DeSantis titled "Geography Matters" to emphasize the role of geographic data scientists in public health and epidemiology. Rebekah Jones was among the 683 signers of the letter but was not otherwise mentioned therein.

Months later, Jones would summarize the episode saying: "They never actually denied what I was saying. They said I was insubordinate, that I didn’t listen to my superiors, and that was true. They asked me to do something wrong and I didn’t do it."

Jones graduated cum laude from the S. I. Newhouse School of Public Communications and Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs at Syracuse University with dual degrees in Earth Science and Journalism in 2012. She received a dual master's degree in geography and mass communication at Louisiana State University in 2014.

Jones was also a graduate student in the Department of Geography at Florida State University from 2016 through 2018 where she completed course work with an emphasis on data science and was working on a doctoral dissertation titled "Using Native American Sitescapes to Extend the North American Paleotempestological Record through Coupled Remote Sensing and Climatological Analysis". According to Jones, her doctoral work is in progress.

Within weeks Jones launched an independent dashboard of the COVID-19 pandemic in Florida using the same data science software and data extraction techniques, but using open data and offering instructions to others wishing to set up their own dashboards. Her dashboard offers more information than the official Florida dashboard, and explains calculations for aggregated data per county. Her second dashboard also gained more views in the first 48 hours than the original dashboard she built at the Florida Department of Health, according to her website. In August she launched a second COVID-19 dashboard specifically to track cases in schools prior to the 2020 Fall school opening. Initially the state did not release any data at all for schools, but did so finally in September, but local newspapers needed her reaction to decipher the large .PDF file that was released.

Her story gained international attention before she was interviewed by CNN's Chris Cuomo. Her story, also presented by Rachel Maddow, suggests that Florida was hiding information about COVID-19 hospitalizations since late May 2020. Additionally, she appeared on multiple television and radio programs, including NPR, CBS Miami, and became an important source for primary data and information about Florida's COVID-19 cases. She was recognized for her contribution to public health by Fortune Magazine's annual 40 Under 40 list. She was profiled by The Washington Post and Time after she founded the non-profit group Florida Covid Action.

Rebekah Jones continues to work with COVID-19 researchers to identify sources for missing Florida COVID-19 data as of July 2020 according to the COVID Tracking Project. In September she was also listed as one of 50 Pandemic experts to follow by the Medium coronavirus blog.

On December 7, 2020, Jones tweeted a video of Florida state officers confiscating her phone and computer.

On December 7th, 2020 at 8:30am state police raided Jones' home. They confiscated electronic devices from her home including her personal phone and laptop computer. She posted video of the encounter taken from a home security camera on her Twitter page. Florida Department of Law Enforcement said in a statement later that day that a warrant for Jones was issued because she was suspected of hacking into a Florida Department of Health computer system and sending an unauthorized message to members of the State Emergency Response Team on November 10, 2020.The alleged statement urged recipients to "speak up before another 17,000 people are dead."