Investigating COVID-19 Response: Policies, Strategies, and Technological Advancements
In the midst of the first global public health crisis of the algorithmic age, hundreds of new data-driven technologies emerged to combat the spread of COVID-19. Among these innovations, contact tracing apps and digital vaccine passports stood out as two of the most widely deployed solutions.
The COVID-19 Data Explorer, a collaborative project between the explorer and Hetco Design, has been instrumental in investigating and presenting data on countries' approaches to these technologies. The platform highlights the technological variations across countries, allowing users to explore timelines and types of vaccine passports and contact tracing apps per country through the View by country section.
A synthesis report titled Lessons from the App Store provides an analysis of the deployment of these technologies and the challenges they faced. The report summarizes findings under four themes: Effectiveness, Public legitimacy, Inequalities, and Governance, regulation, and accountability.
The Contact tracing apps section of the Explorer delves into the technological variations across countries, while the Digital vaccine passport section focuses on the timelines of their emergence and implementation in the sample of 34 countries from six continents.
However, it's important to note that the specific countries studied for contact tracing apps and digital vaccine passports are not detailed in the search results. Different countries have varied approaches: some use digital apps extensively for contact tracing while others focus more on digital vaccine certificates to verify vaccination status. These differences reflect variations in privacy policies, technological infrastructure, and public acceptance.
Despite their widespread deployment, digital vaccine passports were met with public backlash around privacy, fairness, and effectiveness in nearly half of the countries in the sample. Vaccine passport requirements to access public spaces and travel were resisted in nearly half of the countries as well.
The rapid deployment of these technologies raised questions around efficacy, informed consent, public legitimacy, privacy, surveillance, proportionality, and the role of technology in public health management.
The COVID-19 Data Explorer not only collects and presents data on countries' approaches to these technologies, but also supports the discovery and exploration of policies and practices relating to contact tracing apps and digital vaccine passports across the world. The information collected can be used to explore the legacy and implications of the rapid deployment of these technologies.
For more information on the methodology used by the COVID-19 Data Explorer, please refer to the provided resources.
