Attitudes Towards the Use of COVID-19 Apps and Its Associated Factors

Since early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has been significantly changing people's daily lives as social activities are limited to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus. New technologies, especially mobiles apps, have been widely applied to help with reducing the spread of the pandemic. However, although these apps bring many benefits, it also raises privacy issues given the amount of user information being collected and shared. The goal of this study is to understand individuals' attitudes towards the privacy concerns on using COVID-19 apps, and their expectations on the privacy protections. By conducting the survey and collecting responses, results found that majority of the participants expressed privacy concerns on COVID-19 apps, and participants with different socioeconomic status may have different levels of willingness to use the app. Results from this study not only provide guidance for the government and app service providers on the implementation of appropriate safeguards, but also address on the needs of privacy protections for the vulnerable groups.

Attitudes Towards the Use of COVID-19 Apps and Its Associated Factors

Since early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic has been significantly changing people’s daily lives as social activities are limited to slow down the spread of the novel coronavirus. New technologies, especially mobiles apps, have been widely applied to help with reducing the spread of the pandemic. However, although these apps bring many benefits, it also raises privacy issues given the amount of user information being collected and shared. The goal of this study is to understand individuals’ attitudes towards the privacy concerns on using COVID-19 apps, and their expectations on the privacy protections. By conducting the survey and collecting responses, results found that majority of the participants expressed privacy concerns on COVID-19 apps, and participants with different socioeconomic status may have different levels of willingness to use the app. Results from this study not only provide guidance for the government and app service providers on the implementation of appropriate safeguards, but also address on the needs of privacy protections for the vulnerable groups. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.

Factors Affecting Data-Privacy Protection and Promotion of Safe Digital Usage

India is facing the problem of the digital divide. Being developing countries and with low literacy rates, digital knowledge among the public is weak. Those who know a bit about digital operations on smartphones and computers are not having complete knowledge of data security and its peculiarities. Therefore, this study aimed to find determinants of data-privacy anxiety among Indians and to understand their stress and anxiety during the use of digital applications in their daily routines, especially amid the COVID-19 scenario. The current study adopted an inductive qualitative exploratory approach to delve into the above issues. This study employed a reflexive thematic analysis method to analyse interview data of 10 participants across young-adult to middle-adult age groups of male and female gender. Participants belonged to middle socio-economic status having urban background. The study found 6 themes and 26 subordinate themes as determinants of data-privacy anxiety. Emerging themes from the data indicated at the systemic determinants of data-security anxiety, the paradox of learned helplessness and convenience preference among participants. This paper employed the Foucauldian lens of bio-power to discuss the circumscribing function of ill-structured knowledge dissemination approaches. This paper argues in favor of a critical pedagogy approach in educating people about digital security, dealing with data-privacy anxiety, and promoting safe digital usage among all generations of Indians. It also suggests measures of modifications in policies and documentation processes of major online platforms and apps to curb uncertainty and sense of insecurity among users. © 2022 Copyright for this paper by its authors.

COVID-19 Apps and Privacy Protections from Users' Perspective.

As the spread of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19) continues to be a global challenge, there have been numerous efforts and actions from both government and private organizations towards keeping their community members healthy and safe. One of the approaches is to use mobile apps to trace contacts and update the status of the infected individuals efficiently and conveniently so that the spread of COVID-19 can be minimized and contained. While these apps could offer many advantages, it also raises serious privacy concerns for many users and hence possibly refusing to adopt it. In this study, we aim to understand the users' expectations on the privacy protections and the provisions under which they are willing to use COVID-19 apps. We believe our study results can guide policymakers and app developers on the design, deployment, and acceptability of the COVID-19 apps that can be widely adopted.