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

<h4>Objective</h4>To study the U.S. public's attitudes toward surveillance measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, particularly smartphone applications (apps) that supplement traditional contact tracing.<h4>Method</h4>We deployed a survey of approximately 2,000...

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Main Authors: Baobao Zhang, Sarah Kreps, Nina McMurry, R Miles McCain
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Public Library of Science (PLoS) 2020-01-01
Series:PLoS ONE
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242652
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spelling doaj-317538be602c429faff778f846f5e3482021-03-04T12:42:31ZengPublic Library of Science (PLoS)PLoS ONE1932-62032020-01-011512e024265210.1371/journal.pone.0242652Americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic.Baobao ZhangSarah KrepsNina McMurryR Miles McCain<h4>Objective</h4>To study the U.S. public's attitudes toward surveillance measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, particularly smartphone applications (apps) that supplement traditional contact tracing.<h4>Method</h4>We deployed a survey of approximately 2,000 American adults to measure support for nine COVID-19 surveillance measures. We assessed attitudes toward contact tracing apps by manipulating six different attributes of a hypothetical app through a conjoint analysis experiment.<h4>Results</h4>A smaller percentage of respondents support the government encouraging everyone to download and use contact tracing apps (42%) compared with other surveillance measures such as enforcing temperature checks (62%), expanding traditional contact tracing (57%), carrying out centralized quarantine (49%), deploying electronic device monitoring (44%), or implementing immunity passes (44%). Despite partisan differences on a range of surveillance measures, support for the government encouraging digital contact tracing is indistinguishable between Democrats (47%) and Republicans (46%), although more Republicans oppose the policy (39%) compared to Democrats (27%). Of the app features we tested in our conjoint analysis experiment, only one had statistically significant effects on the self-reported likelihood of downloading the app: decentralized data architecture increased the likelihood by 5.4 percentage points.<h4>Conclusion</h4>Support for public health surveillance policies to curb the spread of COVID-19 is relatively low in the U.S. Contact tracing apps that use decentralized data storage, compared with those that use centralized data storage, are more accepted by the public. While respondents' support for expanding traditional contact tracing is greater than their support for the government encouraging the public to download and use contact tracing apps, there are smaller partisan differences in support for the latter policy.https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242652
collection DOAJ
language English
format Article
sources DOAJ
author Baobao Zhang
Sarah Kreps
Nina McMurry
R Miles McCain
spellingShingle Baobao Zhang
Sarah Kreps
Nina McMurry
R Miles McCain
Americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic.
PLoS ONE
author_facet Baobao Zhang
Sarah Kreps
Nina McMurry
R Miles McCain
author_sort Baobao Zhang
title Americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic.
title_short Americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic.
title_full Americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic.
title_fullStr Americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic.
title_full_unstemmed Americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the COVID-19 pandemic.
title_sort americans' perceptions of privacy and surveillance in the covid-19 pandemic.
publisher Public Library of Science (PLoS)
series PLoS ONE
issn 1932-6203
publishDate 2020-01-01
description <h4>Objective</h4>To study the U.S. public's attitudes toward surveillance measures aimed at curbing the spread of COVID-19, particularly smartphone applications (apps) that supplement traditional contact tracing.<h4>Method</h4>We deployed a survey of approximately 2,000 American adults to measure support for nine COVID-19 surveillance measures. We assessed attitudes toward contact tracing apps by manipulating six different attributes of a hypothetical app through a conjoint analysis experiment.<h4>Results</h4>A smaller percentage of respondents support the government encouraging everyone to download and use contact tracing apps (42%) compared with other surveillance measures such as enforcing temperature checks (62%), expanding traditional contact tracing (57%), carrying out centralized quarantine (49%), deploying electronic device monitoring (44%), or implementing immunity passes (44%). Despite partisan differences on a range of surveillance measures, support for the government encouraging digital contact tracing is indistinguishable between Democrats (47%) and Republicans (46%), although more Republicans oppose the policy (39%) compared to Democrats (27%). Of the app features we tested in our conjoint analysis experiment, only one had statistically significant effects on the self-reported likelihood of downloading the app: decentralized data architecture increased the likelihood by 5.4 percentage points.<h4>Conclusion</h4>Support for public health surveillance policies to curb the spread of COVID-19 is relatively low in the U.S. Contact tracing apps that use decentralized data storage, compared with those that use centralized data storage, are more accepted by the public. While respondents' support for expanding traditional contact tracing is greater than their support for the government encouraging the public to download and use contact tracing apps, there are smaller partisan differences in support for the latter policy.
url https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0242652
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