Institute of Health Policy, Management and Evaluation, Dalla Lana School of Public Health, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON, Canada.
Centre for Global eHealth Innovation, University Health Network, Toronto, ON, Canada.
J Med Internet Res. 2021 Mar 4;23(3):e25726. doi: 10.2196/25726.
With the relative ubiquity of smartphones, contact tracing and exposure notification apps have been looked to as novel methods to help reduce the transmission of COVID-19. Many countries have created apps that lie across a spectrum from privacy-first approaches to those that have very few privacy measures. The level of privacy incorporated into an app is largely based on the societal norms and values of a particular country. Digital health technologies can be highly effective and preserve privacy at the same time, but in the case of contact tracing and exposure notification apps, there is a trade-off between increased privacy measures and the effectiveness of the app. In this article, examples from various countries are used to highlight how characteristics of contract tracing and exposure notification apps contribute to the perceived levels of privacy awarded to citizens and how this impacts an app's effectiveness. We conclude that finding the right balance between privacy and effectiveness, while critical, is challenging because it is highly context-specific.
随着智能手机的普及，接触者追踪和暴露通知应用程序已被视为帮助降低 COVID-19 传播的新方法。许多国家都开发了各种应用程序，这些应用程序的隐私保护措施从注重隐私的方法到几乎没有隐私措施的方法都有。应用程序中包含的隐私级别在很大程度上基于特定国家的社会规范和价值观。数字健康技术可以非常有效同时保护隐私，但在接触者追踪和暴露通知应用程序的情况下，增加隐私措施和应用程序的有效性之间存在权衡。在本文中，使用来自不同国家的示例来突出显示接触者追踪和暴露通知应用程序的特征如何有助于感知授予公民的隐私级别，以及这如何影响应用程序的有效性。我们的结论是，在隐私和有效性之间找到适当的平衡虽然至关重要，但具有挑战性，因为它高度依赖于具体情况。
