Citizens’ Attitudes to Contact Tracing Apps

Abstract

Citizens’ concerns about data privacy and data security breaches may reduce adoption of COVID-19 contact tracing mobile phone applications, making them less effective. We implement a choice experiment (conjoint experiment) where participants indicate which version of two contact tracing apps they would install, varying the apps’ privacy-preserving attributes. Citizens do not always prioritize privacy and prefer a centralised National Health Service system over a decentralised system. In a further study asking about participants’ preference for digital vs human-only contact tracing, we find a mixture of digital and human contact tracing is supported. We randomly allocated a subset of participants in each study to receive a stimulus priming data breach as a concern, before asking about contact tracing. Salient threat of unauthorised access or data theft does not significantly alter preferences in either study. We suggest COVID-19 and trust in a national public health service system mitigate respondents’ concerns about privacy.