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Americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the COVID-19 Pandemic

Author

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  • Zhang, Baobao

    (Yale University)

  • Kreps, Sarah E.
  • McMurry, Nina

Abstract

As COVID-19 continues to spread, some public health authorities have implemented or plan to implement smartphone apps to supplement traditional contact tracing. These apps are more effective if a higher percentage of the public downloads and uses them. Yet fears that these apps would violate users' privacy by expanding governments' and tech companies' surveillance capacity may limit adoption. We conducted a study of American attitudes (N≈2,000) toward public health surveillance policies, focusing on smartphone contact tracing apps. We find widespread reluctance among the public: support for contact tracing apps is lower than for expanding traditional contact tracing or introducing new measures like temperature checks. Using a conjoint experiment embedded in the survey, we found that decentralized data storage increased the public's acceptance of contact tracing apps. Only a minority of respondents support the government, employers, and places of religious worship requiring smartphone users to download and use these apps. Despite partisan splits on traditional contact tracing and wearing face masks, Democrats and Republicans converge on levels of support for contact tracing apps, suggesting that bipartisan elite cues could work to augment support. Lastly, the prevalence of misunderstanding about the technology suggests that public education campaigns are needed before states deploy contact tracing apps. (Note: This paper is based on a new survey that we conducted in late June 2020. We identified a software issue that affected the results of our previous survey and fixed this problem in our new survey.)

Suggested Citation

  • Zhang, Baobao & Kreps, Sarah E. & McMurry, Nina, 2020. "Americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the COVID-19 Pandemic," OSF Preprints 9wz3y, Center for Open Science.
    • Handle: RePEc:osf:osfxxx:9wz3y
    DOI: 10.31219/osf.io/9wz3y
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    Cited by:

    1. Dana Naous & Manus Bonner & Mathias Humbert & Christine Legner, 2022. "Learning From the Past to Improve the Future," Business & Information Systems Engineering: The International Journal of WIRTSCHAFTSINFORMATIK, Springer;Gesellschaft für Informatik e.V. (GI), vol. 64(5), pages 597-614, October.
    2. Bamel, Umesh & Talwar, Shalini & Pereira, Vijay & Corazza, Laura & Dhir, Amandeep, 2023. "Disruptive digital innovations in healthcare: Knowing the past and anticipating the future," Technovation, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    3. Ioannou, Athina & Tussyadiah, Iis, 2021. "Privacy and surveillance attitudes during health crises: Acceptance of surveillance and privacy protection behaviours," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 67(C).
    4. van der Waal, Nadine Elisa & de Wit, Jan & Bol, Nadine & Ebbers, Wolfgang & Hooft, Lotty & Metting, Esther & van der Laan, Laura Nynke, 2022. "Predictors of contact tracing app adoption: Integrating the UTAUT, HBM and contextual factors," Technology in Society, Elsevier, vol. 71(C).
    5. Leah Ruppanner & Xiao Tan & Andrea Carson & Shaun Ratcliff, 2021. "Emotional and financial health during COVID‐19: The role of housework, employment and childcare in Australia and the United States," Gender, Work and Organization, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 28(5), pages 1937-1955, September.

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