Contact-tracing apps and alienation in the age of COVID-19

Abstract

Using a core idea of critical social theory, alienation, we interrogate the failure in the design and adoption of a Stop-COVID app in France. We analyse the political and scientific discourse, to develop an understanding of the conditions giving rise to this failure in this unprecedented moment. We argue that the digital-first solutionist approach taken by the government failed because, as in all Western countries, most stakeholders were alienated from the reality of the COVID-19 pandemic and lacked concrete knowledge of it. Furthermore, the French government and its COVID-19 council excluded relevant scientific experts in favour of quantitative modelling based on abstract partial knowledge. This along with coercion and lack of transparency about the app, reinforced alienation, undermined effectiveness in managing the crisis and resulted in the digital design failure. We suggest that such alienation will prevail in the COVID-19 era characterised by regimes of control, rampant abusive location tracking, and data collection, and where public officials are more concerned with managing effects than seeking causal explanations. The digitalfirst solutionist approach was adopted, not because digital solutions (to contact tracing) are superior to traditional ones, but by default due to alienation and lack of interdisciplinary cooperation.

Early Perceptions of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps in German-Speaking Countries: Comparative Mixed Methods Study

“…Indeed, the voluntariness of contact tracing apps is also debated and emphasized by experts, including what voluntariness means in this context [ 61 - 63 ]. Nevertheless, ethicists have more recently criticized this emphasis on privacy and pointed to other ethical issues that were left aside in app development, such as safety and effectiveness [ 60 , 64 ], social justice issues [ 65 , 66 ], or the potentially problematic policy influence of Apple and Google in that context [ 18 , 67 ].…”

“…One reason for this might be that the early perception as a surveillance tool for authorities left many people reluctant to use contact tracing apps. The observed tendency to put these contact tracing apps into a broader context of technological surveillance tools and privacy concerns might have triggered general concerns of privacy that are known to be particularly important in the German-speaking areas [ 70 ], and the same has been reported in the French context [ 18 ]. Newspapers reporting the use of contact tracing and tracking apps in Asian countries might have further deepened the impression that these applications are not aligned with democratic principles of individual privacy and freedom since these applications were considered by interview participants and newspapers alike to be not compatible with privacy regulations and democratic principles as understood in the European context.…”

“…Contrary to those estimates, Maccari and Cagno [ 17 ] argued that Bluetooth-based, privacy-preserving contact tracing apps are of limited benefit due to potentially high false-positive rates and low sensitivity. Similarly, Rowe et al [ 18 ] contended that the French contact tracing app was implemented very quickly without taking into account the available evidence on viral spread. Overall, robust evidence on the actual effectiveness of contact tracing apps is lacking [ 19 ].…”

“…The dynamic and uncertain situation at the beginning of the pandemic made people particularly reliant on such information sources. Previous studies have used media content analyses to assess public debates during the COVID-19 pandemic [ 18 , 50 ], as well as other issues that affect population health [ 51 , 52 ]. Some other studies have combined media content analyses with surveys and interviews [ 53 , 54 ].…”

Without a trace: Why did corona apps fail?

“…Of course, issues concerning implementation of the proposed strategy remain; a critical aspect of this will be to properly address and assuage the privacy concerns that have led Apple and Google, and much of the public at large, to regard centralised architectures with suspicion. 16 28 But the considerations outlined here do serve to make clear that we must revise some of the most prominent assumptions underlying the debate on digital contact tracing.…”