COVID-19 and Contact Tracing Apps: Ethical Challenges for a Social Experiment on a Global Scale

Lucivero, Federica; Hallowell, Nina; Johnson, Stephanie; Prainsack, Barbara; Samuel, Gabrielle; Sharon, Tamar

doi:10.1007/s11673-020-10016-9

Cited by 75 publications

(55 citation statements)

References 9 publications

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“…These uncertainties and misconceptions seemed to be associated with uneasiness and general skepticism. These findings highlight the difficult task for governments to communicate about the apps they plan to introduce transparently, clearly, and simply, while including sufficient information to allow people to distinguish between different applications [ 76 , 77 ].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Zimmermann¹,

Fiske²,

Prainsack³

et al. 2021

J Med Internet Res

Self Cite

104

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Background The main German-speaking countries (Germany, Austria, and Switzerland) have implemented digital contact tracing apps to assist the authorities with COVID-19 containment strategies. Low user rates for these apps can affect contact tracing and, thus, its usefulness in controlling the spread of the novel coronavirus. Objective This study aimed to assess the early perceptions of people living in the German-speaking countries and compare them with the frames portrayed in the newspapers during the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. Methods We conducted qualitative interviews with 159 participants of the SolPan project. Of those, 110 participants discussed contact tracing apps and were included in this study. We analyzed articles regarding contact tracing apps from 12 newspapers in the German-speaking countries. Results Study participants perceived and newspaper coverage in all German-speaking countries framed contact tracing apps as governmental surveillance tools and embedded them in a broader context of technological surveillance. Participants identified trust in authorities, respect of individual privacy, voluntariness, and temporary use of contact tracing apps as prerequisites for democratic compatibility. Newspapers commonly referenced the use of such apps in Asian countries, emphasizing the differences in privacy regulation among these countries. Conclusions The uptake of digital contact tracing apps in German-speaking countries may be undermined due to privacy risks that are not compensated by potential benefits and are rooted in a deeper skepticism towards digital tools. When authorities plan to implement new digital tools and practices in the future, they should be very transparent and proactive in communicating their objectives and the role of the technology—and how it differs from other, possibly similar, tools. It is also important to publicly address ethical, legal, and social issues related to such technologies prior to their launch.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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

Zimmermann¹,

Fiske²,

Prainsack³

et al. 2021

J Med Internet Res

Self Cite

104

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“… Transparency— To encourage the willingness to adopt and use contact tracing apps, policymakers, developers, governments, and public health authorities in neo-liberal societies must adopt a feedback mechanism during the phases of deployment to create public confidence, trust and participation. Citizens deserve clarity on the purpose of data collection, types of data collected, who has access to such data, the modalities, extent and timeline for data deletion [ 35 , 58 , 59 , 71 , 78 , 94 , 116 ]. Influencing human behaviour— It is important to study human behaviour when designing and developing contact tracing apps and related digital technologies before deploying and integrating them amongst the population.…”

Section: Discussion Of Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…with different political and cultural systems. Controversies about the legitimacy of these apps have largely focused on issues of privacy and surveillance as commentators emphasized the differences between populations in East Asia’s acceptance of state surveillance and a European scepticism towards this practice [ 35 ]. The barrier appears to be that many of these countries especially in Europe are very sensitive to privacy issues and privacy is protected by law like the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) [ 36 , 37 ].…”

Section: Mandatory Application Of Contact Tracing Apps In East Asiamentioning

confidence: 99%

Contact tracing apps for the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic literature review of challenges and future directions for neo-liberal societies

Akinbi

Forshaw

Blinkhorn

2021

Health Inf Sci Syst

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Purpose The COVID-19 pandemic has spread with increased fatalities around the world and has become an international public health crisis. Public health authorities in many countries have introduced contact tracing apps to track and trace infected persons as part of measures to contain the spread of the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome-Coronavirus 2. However, there are major concerns about its efficacy and privacy which affects mass acceptance amongst a population. This systematic literature review encompasses the current challenges facing this technology and recommendations to address such challenges in the fight against the COVID-19 pandemic in neo-liberal societies. Methods The systematic literature review was conducted by searching databases of Google Scholar, Web of Science, PubMed, IEEE Xplore Digital Library, PsycInfo and ScienceDirect using the search terms (“Contact Tracing” OR “Contact Tracing apps”) AND (“COVID-19” OR “Coronavirus”) to identify relevant literature. The searches were run against the title, keywords, or abstract, depending on the search platforms. The searches were conducted between January 1, 2020, through 31st January 2021. Further inputs were also taken from preprints, published government and technical reports. We explore and discuss from the selected literature, the key challenges and issues that influence unwillingness to use these contact tracing apps in neo-liberal societies which include the plausibility of abuse of user privacy rights and lack of trust in the government and public health authorities by their citizens. Other challenges identified and discussed include ethical issues, security vulnerabilities, user behaviour and participation, and technical constraints. Results and conclusion Finally, in the analysis of this systematic literature review, recommendations to address these challenges, future directions, and considerations in the use of digital contact tracing apps and related technologies to contain the spread of future pandemic outbreaks are presented. For policy makers in neo-liberal societies, this study provides an in-depth review of issues that must be addressed. We highlight recommendations to improve the willingness to use such digital technologies and could facilitate mass acceptance amongst users.

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“…Having established that, in order to increase the chances of being effective, digital contact tracing requires the centralised storage of some pseudonymised information concerning each user, we will now turn to a general ethical evaluation of the different contact tracing options. There are various values that should guide the design and implementation of contact tracing apps and ethical challenges that should be met (Lucivero et al, 2020 ; Ranisch et al, 2020 ). While many substantive and procedural values, such as justice and transparency, can be expected to be had “for free”, that is, without violating other important values, we will focus here on those that might generate trade-offs that will be crucial for an ethical evaluation: namely, is there a configuration of the app with the ability to achieve the public health benefits it is supposed to achieve, while at the same time respecting its users’ privacy ?…”

Section: Inherent Safety Versus Secondary Prevention Measuresmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The collection of these data on a central server may have further advantages, for instance, as input for epidemiological research or public health care planning(Lucivero et al, 2020). Centralised storage is thus also conducive to important public health values.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Privacy versus Public Health? A Reassessment of Centralised and Decentralised Digital Contact Tracing

White

Basshuysen

2021

Sci Eng Ethics

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At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, high hopes were placed on digital contact tracing. Digital contact tracing apps can now be downloaded in many countries, but as further waves of COVID-19 tear through much of the northern hemisphere, these apps are playing a less important role in interrupting chains of infection than anticipated. We argue that one of the reasons for this is that most countries have opted for decentralised apps, which cannot provide a means of rapidly informing users of likely infections while avoiding too many false positive reports. Centralised apps, in contrast, have the potential to do this. But policy making was influenced by public debates about the right app configuration, which have tended to focus heavily on privacy, and are driven by the assumption that decentralised apps are “privacy preserving by design”. We show that both types of apps are in fact vulnerable to privacy breaches, and, drawing on principles from safety engineering and risk analysis, compare the risks of centralised and decentralised systems along two dimensions, namely the probability of possible breaches and their severity. We conclude that a centralised app may in fact minimise overall ethical risk, and contend that we must reassess our approach to digital contact tracing, and should, more generally, be cautious about a myopic focus on privacy when conducting ethical assessments of data technologies.

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COVID-19 and Contact Tracing Apps: Ethical Challenges for a Social Experiment on a Global Scale

Cited by 75 publications

References 9 publications

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

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

Contact tracing apps for the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic literature review of challenges and future directions for neo-liberal societies

Privacy versus Public Health? A Reassessment of Centralised and Decentralised Digital Contact Tracing

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