Keeping Up with the Digital COVID Jungle

This blog belongs to the CSS’ coronavirus blog series, which forms a part of the center’s analysis of the security policy implications of the coronavirus crisis. See the CSS special theme pageon the coronavirus for more.

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an explosion of digital tools for fighting communicable diseases. To cut through this complexity, this blog provides an overview of such tools for information exchange, contact tracing and monitoring compliance with physical distancing and quarantine measures. The large variety of applications can be explained by the (sub‑) national organization of crisis management, different socio-technological contexts, and the initial absence of sunk costs. To avoid an accelerated increase of surveillance that is incompatible with democratic standards, more transparency is needed regarding external pagegovernment contractscall_made and consequential, algorithmic decision-making.

Information Exchange and Self-assessment Tools

Already during the early stages of the pandemic, governments commissioned various apps to distribute assured information and to enable a first triage of citizens concerned about having COVID-19. Whereas most self-assessment apps or web forms are basically surveys, some also offer remote consultations with doctors. For example, the French app external pageCovidomcall_made allows doctors to follow up with infected patients. Furthermore, there are attempts to turn smartphones into medical sensors that estimate the likelihood of an infection with the novel coronavirus based external pageon coughing soundscall_made. Another type of self-assessment application does not primarily aim to inform users but epidemiologists. Daily symptom trackers such as the external pageCOVID Symptom Studycall_made and external pageHow We Feelcall_made aim to provide researchers with up-to-date information about the likely prevalence of COVID-19.

Some countries offer information and self-assessment through web-based messenger services, often in conjunction with chatbots. The advantage of this is that large portions of populations are already on these platforms. Interestingly, it is not primarily the Western countries with the highest internet penetration rates but emerging economies, such as India or Indonesia, that have been using this communication channel. Hence, this might be framed as the leapfrogging of traditional helplines on landlines staffed by numerous human operators. The developer of the South African chatbot, the Praekelt Foundation, was tasked with globalizing its service external pagein collaboration with the WHO,call_made offering advice in 11 languages. This WHO WhatsApp bot seems to have been fairly successful, reaching more than 10 million people in its first four days. In contrast, the UN App 1point5, which was meant to encourage physical distancing, suffered from conceptual and external pagetechnical issuescall_made, and has only garnered external pageabout 5,000 downloadscall_made on Google Play since its launch at the end of April.

Lastly, there is the option of a cell broadcast, a location-based, one-to-many text communication in which a radio cell pushes the same message to all devices in its vicinity. During the outbreak in February and March in South Korea, the country’s authorities sent out around three to five messages per day to inform citizens of nearby confirmed cases and to remind them to refrain from large gatherings, to wear masks, and to wash their hands.

Mobile Phone Location

As large parts of the world went into harder or softer “lockdowns” of unprecedented scale, governments were naturally interested in monitoring whether people were complying with these measures. The use of aggregated mobile phone data was particularly external pageencouraged by the EU’s internal market commissioner Thierry Bretoncall_made and subsequently adopted by many European countries. For example, in Switzerland external pageSwisscom provides such datacall_made to the Federal Office of Public Health, in the form of visualizations of activities on the previous day with a resolution of 100m x100m. Some countries such as South Korea or the Czech Republic also request the location of individual phones in order to support contact tracing investigations or to monitor whether individuals are following self-isolation orders.

Video Cameras and Analytics

Individual police departments have been using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to external pagemonitor physical distancingcall_made and in some cases even to external pageremind them of it via speakerscall_made. In China, UAVs have also been deployed to measure people’s temperatures and external pageto display QR codescall_made for the registration of health conditions. The company external pageDraganflycall_made is even working on special-purpose “pandemic drones”. Given the relative visibility of privacy violations involving UAVs, their use external pagecan be controversialcall_made. Counterintuitively, this can even turn UAVs into “external pageprivacy catalystscall_made” given the push-back against their use, even when they only form a small part of overall surveillance infrastructures.

States are also using CCTVs and video analytics for a variety of purposes: In Germany, a hackathon group has created external pageeveryonecountscall_made, which uses publicly available cameras to monitor physical distancing; external pagein Pariscall_made, authorities use video analytics to monitor whether people wear masks in the Métro; external pagein South Koreacall_made, the CCTV-network is a fixed part of digitally assisted contact tracing; external pagein Polandcall_made, facial recognition forms a part of a mandatory quarantine app; and external pagein Moscowcall_made, the police are alerted if a camera identifies someone who should be in self-isolation. Lastly, China already operates the world’s largest network of CCTV-cameras by far, aptly named after “Skynet” from the Terminator movies, and there is a external pageproposalcall_made for a vast expansion of this network to further “epidemic prevention”.

Contact Tracing Apps

In preparation for a “new normal” that will last until a vaccine is secured for the virus, states have created apps that use different mixes of global navigation satellite systems (GNSS), WiFi positioning, cell tower positioning and external pageBluetooth Low Energy (BLE)call_made in order to track the location of mobile phones or their proximity to other phones. The most popular approach is based on BLE, which only measures proximity, works indoors, and is precise, creating comparatively few false positives. However, all BLE-based contact tracing apps are network goods that only become useful if a very high share of those who possess compatible smartphones use them. Specifically, the share of all theoretically possible close human encounters within a country that are logged by a contact tracing app can be roughly approximated by the square of its adoption rate. At a 20 per cent adoption rate, it only captures about 4 per cent of the connections. At 40 per cent, it captures about 16 per cent of the encounters. At 60 per cent it logs close to 36 per cent of connections. Hence, whereas the multi-source contact tracing in South Korea external pageappears to be fairly successfulcall_made, contact tracing apps have not been able to demonstrate a significant impact so far in early adopter countries, such as external pageIcelandcall_made and external pageAustraliacall_made.

Tracking Wristbands

Last but not least, some states are using tracking wristbands to enforce quarantine on people known to have violated it or on those who do not possess a smartphone. Further uses of wristbands include the monitoring of physical distancing in the external pagePort of Antwerpcall_made, and the collection of information on how COVID-19 relates to various biometric factors in external pageLiechtensteincall_made.

Socio-technical Context

In order to make sense of all these applications, and their future development, they have to be embedded in a larger context. The analog and digital tools that are being used by states and other actors during the COVID-19 pandemic are to some degree a “external pagematerial validation of the social ordercall_made”, insofar as societies have different values and make other risk-risk trade-offs based on them. Moreover, the external pagestrategic approachcall_made of countries matters. Those that try to suppress the epidemic curve, rather than aiming for natural herd immunity with mitigated costs, are likely more reliant on tools for testing, contact tracing, and quarantine. Furthermore, digital tools have to be embedded in the larger context of the ongoing process of digitalization and the spread of related infrastructure. Except for large CCTV-networks, the adoption of sensors and sensor-platforms has mostly been bottom-up. For example, police departments often adopt commercial off-the-shelf UAVs on their own initiative and without large budget requirements.

Using the typology for socio-technical transitions external pageby Geels and Schotcall_made, the COVID-19 pandemic can be characterized as a landscape shock that puts pressure on the existing sociotechnical regime for public health, thereby opening a window of opportunities for novelties, such as the latent capabilities of new ICT-infrastructures. When new fields of application of technologies emerge, social networks, economic structures, markets, and cognitive structures are not yet solidified, resulting in a high diversity of design specifications, user preferences and regulations. Later on, the technology gains inertia as assets are purchased, standards are set, infrastructure is built, employees are trained, and interests are consolidated.

In the current transition, it appears unlikely that digital tools, such as contact tracing apps, are capable of becoming direct technological substitutions for traditional methods. In contexts where digital tools prove ineffective, the traditional public health regime will realign after the crisis. However, the more likely path forward seems to be a reconfiguration, in which specific digital elements will be incorporated into the public health regime and adjusted over time, in a similar way to how external pageSouth Korea’s use of ICTcall_made has been based on learnings from the 2015 Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS) outbreak in the country.

Addressing Concerns

When evaluating the risk and benefit of tools, it is important to go beyond a mere dichotomy between digital and analog approaches and to use comparable external pagescientificcall_made and ethical standards. A decentralized contract tracing app based on the exposure notification application program interface (API) by Google and Apple should not contribute to eroding privacy, as it does not track the location and only stores pseudonymized encounters on the device. In fact, it could even help to protect privacy as alternative solutions in places such as restaurants, cinemas, or public transport are quite likely to request personal information. In contrast, the external pageprolonged usecall_made of external pagehealth code mini-appscall_made in China is alarming, insofar as their green, yellow, or red color systems determine the ability of individuals to participate in public life, while their decision-logic remains opaque. Furthermore, the activities of spyware and surveillance companies that external pageaggressively pitch their services to governments behind closed doorscall_made arguably deserve more public scrutiny. For such firms, enhancing the surveillance state is not “mission creep” but the business model.

The Center for Security Studies (CSS) is investigating the medium and long-term consequences of the corona crisis through two research projects. One project focuses on national and international crisis management. The other addresses the effects of the crisis on international relations and national and international security policy. To find out more, see the CSS special theme pageon corona.

About the Author

Kevin Kohler is a researcher in the Cyber Defense Team at the Center for Security Studies (CSS) at ETH Zurich.