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Acceptability of scenarios during the first wave (28-29 March 2020) The 4 pairs of bars refer to the 4 acceptability questions; see Fig 1. Error bars are 95% confidence intervals computed by R function prop.test.
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The nature of the COVID-19 pandemic may require governments to use privacy-encroaching technologies to help contain its spread. One technology involves co-location tracking through mobile Wi-Fi, GPS, and Bluetooth to permit health agencies to monitor people’s contact with each other, thereby triggering targeted social-distancing when a person turns...
Citations
... It adopted a centralised model, storing contact information in a central database rather than exclusively on an individual's phone . 3 The UK Information Commissioners' Office (ICO) explained that the use of mobile phone data for broader contact tracing would be legally permissible in March, and health authorities in the United Kingdom had the significant authority to request contact information from persons who were infected or potentially infected despite the absence of specific provisions for broader surveillance in the Coronavirus Bill passed on 25 March 2020 (Lewandowsky et al., 2021). However, this strategy gave rise to concerns, not only related to the feature of Bluetooth technology but also regarding the centralised data collection model, potential privacy violation, and government surveillance (Cresswell et al., 2021;Samuel et al., 2022). ...
... One major issue was the notable worry about the low proportion of individuals in England receiving their COVID-19 test results within twenty-four hours 4 (The London Economic, 2020). Secondly, although the number of downloads for the app in England and Wales surpassed twentynine million by December 2021 (Ceci, 2022), the download count was insignificant, given that the population of England and Wales is approximately fifty-nine million (Lewandowsky et al., 2021). ...
... In another survey conducted in May, respondents mentioned that distrust in the government and apprehensions about privacy and data security are significant factors affecting their reluctance to use the app (Jones and Thompson, 2021;Williams et al., 2021). Thus, the government decided to shift from the centralised approach to the decentralised approach, and the decentralised app was launched in September 2020 (Lewandowsky et al., 2021). ...
The article investigates the role and challenges of digital technology adoption during the COVID-19 pandemic through a critical human security lens and comparative analysis between South Korea and the United Kingdom. The pandemic served as motivation for the adoption of digital technology among vulnerable groups, either forcing or encouraging the necessity and utilisation of these technologies. This contributes to enhancing human security, but the persistent exclusion of certain individuals indicates the need for additional attention and policies. The case of both countries highlights the disparities in technology use due to factors like digital literacy and information security concerns, emphasising that rapid technological adoption by governments does not guarantee an effective pandemic response. The study also examines the dual role of digital technologies in enhancing and compromising human security, illustrating the importance of a balanced approach to digitalisation that includes policy support for vulnerable groups and public endorsement of new technologies.
... In other words, COVID-19 certification is not merely a facilitator of safer access but also a psychological tool that directly influences individuals' intention to travel. Despite the certification itself involving issues intertwined with privacy and apprehensions about the utilization of tracking data, as well as the risk of counterfeiting (Adepoju, 2019;Lewandowsky et al., 2021), the positive elements from reliance on certification may prevail in situations of health risks, leading individuals to shape their cognitive and behavioral responses accordingly. In this vein, the following hypothesis is proposed. ...
The severe impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the tourism industry has revived academic interest in evaluating the strategic role of trust in crises. As a force able to mitigate uncertainty and vulnerability, trust can influence people's travel decision-making process. Extant tourism crisis literature concentrates on individual trust levels in isolation, neglecting its multi-faceted nature. Therefore, a research gap emerges in identifying trust layers that most effectively enhance the intention to travel. In order to address this gap, this study adopts a multi-layered trust perspective rooted in the protection motivation theory (PMT). This study aims to analyze the effectiveness of multi-layer trust as a coping mechanism to enhance intention to travel in the cruise industry. This study uses survey data from 661 cruisers and applies structural equation modeling to test hypotheses empirically. Results highlight that trust in the company and interpersonal trust are the most effective antecedents of the intention to travel, effectively mitigating the perceived health risk. Conversely, trust in the vaccine and trust in the certification show no significant influence on the intention to travel. Therefore, in times of crisis, cruise lines should leverage trust in the company and interpersonal trust as strategic tools to counterbalance the perceived health risks and stimulate travel intentions.
... A series of national cross-sectional surveys were conducted between November 2021 to March 2022 to evaluate Canadian public attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine mandates. Within this timeframe, there were eight survey waves, defined as the following: W25 (November [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24][25]2021 The study sample was closed meaning that the same pool of participants was used to draw the sample for each survey. No participants entered or exited the sample. ...
... However, the demographics of the sample participants may have contributed to this trend. Two large surveys conducted in the United Kingdom that examined public acceptance of privacy-tracking COVID-19 policies, including the implementation of immunity passports, reported that people's perceived trust in the government's intention and ability to securely manage their health data was the most important predictor of COVID-19 policy acceptance and associated with more favourable attitudes towards tracking policies [19]. Another global survey examining COVID-19 vaccine acceptance from participants in 19 different countries and found that those reporting higher levels of trust in their government were more likely to accept the vaccine and respond positively to an employer-enforced employee vaccination mandate than those with lower levels of trust [20]. ...
Introduction
Since the beginning of the pandemic, numerous public health measures such as COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine mandates and vaccination certificates have been introduced to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Public opinion and attitudes towards these measures have fluctuated in response to the dynamic political, social, and cultural landscape of the pandemic.
Methods
We conducted a time-series study consisting of national cross-sectional surveys between November 2021 to March 2022 to evaluate the Canadian public’s attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine mandates and vaccine certificates.
Results
When examining public sentiment towards COVID-19 vaccine certificates and proof of vaccination measures, there was a shift in responses over time. The proportion of participants “strongly supporting” these measures decreased from 66.0 to 43.1% between W25(Capacity Limits), −W32 (Mask Mandate Removed), whereas “strongly oppose” was the second most common response and rose from 15.9 to 20.6% during this same time period. Concurrently, when examining participants views surrounding mandates, many participants believed that their province was reopening at “about the right pace”, which remained relatively stable over time (33.0–35.4%) between W28 (Emergency Act)–W32 (Mask Mandate Removed).
Conclusion
Our study’s findings on the public’s attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine mandates and vaccine certificates in Canada may aid to guide and streamline the implementation of future similar public health interventions. Future research should include extended follow-up and a more comprehensive examination of trust in government institutions and polarized perspectives on vaccine mandates.
... A study in Singapore [34] found that political trust could mediate Singaporeans' privacy concerns, and those who exhibited trust in their government tended to have more positive attitudes toward digital contact tracing technology. This finding is echoed in multiple studies on contact tracing apps in countries including France [35], Japan [36], Germany [37], and the United Kingdom [38]. ...
Background
Contact tracing technology has been adopted in many countries to aid in identifying, evaluating, and handling individuals who have had contact with those infected with COVID-19. Singapore was among the countries that actively implemented the government-led contact tracing program known as TraceTogether. Despite the benefits the contact tracing program could provide to individuals and the community, privacy issues were a significant barrier to individuals’ acceptance of the program.
Objective
Building on the privacy calculus model, this study investigates how the perceptions of the 2 key groups (ie, government and community members) involved in the digital contact tracing factor into individuals’ privacy calculus of digital contact tracing.
Methods
Using a mixed method approach, we conducted (1) a 2-wave survey (n=674) and (2) in-depth interviews (n=12) with TraceTogether users in Singapore. Using structural equation modeling, this study investigated how trust in the government and the sense of community exhibited by individuals during the early stage of implementation (time 1) predicted privacy concerns, perceived benefits, and future use intentions, measured after the program was fully implemented (time 2). Expanding on the survey results, this study conducted one-on-one interviews to gain in-depth insights into the privacy considerations involved in digital contact tracing.
Results
The results from the survey showed that trust in the government increased perceived benefits while decreasing privacy concerns regarding the use of TraceTogether. Furthermore, individuals who felt a connection to community members by participating in the program (ie, the sense of community) were more inclined to believe in its benefits. The sense of community also played a moderating role in the influence of government trust on perceived benefits. Follow-up in-depth interviews highlighted that having a sense of control over information and transparency in the government’s data management were crucial factors in privacy considerations. The interviews also highlighted surveillance as the most prevalent aspect of privacy concerns regarding TraceTogether use. In addition, our findings revealed that trust in the government, particularly the perceived transparency of government actions, was most strongly associated with concerns regarding the secondary use of data.
Conclusions
Using a mixed method approach involving a 2-wave survey and in-depth interview data, we expanded our understanding of privacy decisions and the privacy calculus in the context of digital contact tracing. The opposite influences of privacy concerns and perceived benefit on use intention suggest that the privacy calculus in TraceTogether might be viewed as a rational process of weighing between privacy risks and use benefits to make an uptake decision. However, our study demonstrated that existing perceptions toward the provider and the government in the contact tracing context, as well as the perception of the community triggered by TraceTogether use, may bias user appraisals of privacy risks and the benefits of contact tracing.
... As contact-tracing apps offer a possible solution to bend the contagion curve, it is of critical importance to understand the factors that influence contact-tracing apps' adoption among citizens. Recently, numerous studies have examined the effect of different factors on the adoption and use of contact-tracing apps worldwide, namely privacy concerns and cyber security risks (e.g., Altmann et al., 2020;Horvath et al., 2022), government-related factors such as trust on the government (e.g., Abeler et al., 2020;Buder et al., 2020) and individuals' political views (e.g., Lewandowsky et al., 2021;Wnuk et al., 2020), technology-related factors such as individuals' technical abilities (e.g., Albrecht et al., 2021;Kostka & Habich-Sobiegalla, 2020), compatible equipment (e.g, Bachtiger et al., 2020;Horstmann et al., 2021), and app design and specifications (e.g., Wiertz et al., 2020;Zhang et al., 2020), and individuals' characteristics such as socio-demographic variables (e.g., Jansen-Kosterink et al., 2021;Von Wyl et al., 2021), health status (e.g., Blom et al., 2021;O'Callaghan et al., 2021), and personality traits (e.g., Guillon & Kergall, 2020;Walrave et al., 2021). ...
... First, this research provides empirical insights into the impact of citizens' motivations -ignored to date in the literature-on contact-tracing apps. Additionally, most existing studies investigating contact-tracing apps' adoption were carried out at the beginning of the pandemic (e.g., Abeler et al., 2020;Altmann et al., 2020;Guillon & Kergall, 2020;Kaspar, 2020;Lewandowsky et al., 2021;Li et al., 2020;Trang et al., 2020;Wnuk et al., 2020;Zhang et al., 2020). At that time, there was a great lack of knowledge and confusion around contact-tracing apps. ...
... Finally, researchers have also focused on how individuals' characteristics, such as gender (Lewandowsky et al., 2021;Wnuk et al., 2020) or age (Jansen-Kosterink et al., 2021;Kostka & Habich-Sobiegalla, 2020), influence contact-tracing apps' adoption. Individuals' health status and the potential to infect or get infected also played an important role (Horstmann et al., 2021;O'Callaghan et al., 2021). ...
During the Covid-19 pandemic, contact-tracing apps have offered effective help to bend the contagion curve. Thus, it is of critical importance to understand the factors that influence contact-tracing apps’ adoption among citizens. In particular, the successful adoption and usage of contact-tracing apps strongly relies on individual motives. Therefore, this study draws on the theory of altruistic and egoistic motivation for prosocial behaviours to analyse the underlying motives through which citizens engage in voluntary behaviours aimed at using and promoting the use of contact-tracing apps. The study also examines the mediating role of users’ trust in the app. Data from 221 users of Ireland’s Covid Tracker app was analysed. Structural equation modelling with PLS was used to test the research model. Findings show differences between egoistic and altruistic motivation in promoting app use and sharing. Egoistic motivation significantly promotes voluntary behaviours among citizens and users’ trust in the app mediates this influence. Yet, contrary to predictions, in the context of the pandemic, altruistic motivation does not play a significant role in engaging citizens in these voluntary behaviours, either directly or indirectly. The findings of this study are important for policy makers and may inform future policy decisions regarding the implementation of contact-tracing apps in the case of new pandemics or for other contexts requiring cooperative daily check-in.
... Several studies have examined the public perception and media coverage of digital contact tracing applications. Public opinion surveys indicate that 60-70% of people in different European countries and the US support digital contact tracing (Altmann et al., 2020;Lewandowsky et al., 2021). The actual adoption rate, however, was often much lower. ...
... A study by von found that while 46.5% of Swiss participants reported either using or planning to use a contact tracing app, the proportion of active users in the Swiss population was recorded at 24.2%. Concerns about privacy and trust in government, as well as a lack of digital literacy and health-conscious behaviors, were identified as key reasons for low adoption rates (Guillon & Kergall, 2020;Jansen-Kosterink et al., 2021;Lewandowsky et al., 2021). Media coverage was generally favorable, with news articles in Austrian, German, and Swiss newspapers focusing on data governance issues (e.g., centralized vs. decentralized data processing), participation options (e.g., mandatory vs. voluntary use), and explanations of the app's technical features (Amann et al., 2021). ...
... Two large surveys conducted in the United Kingdom that examined public acceptance of privacy-tracking COVID-19 policies, including the implementation of immunity passports, reported that people's perceived trust in the government's intention and ability to securely manage their health data was the most important predictor of COVID-19 policy acceptance and associated with more favourable attitudes towards tracking policies. 12 Another global survey examining COVID-19 vaccine acceptance from participants in 19 different countries and found that those reporting higher levels of trust in their government were more likely to accept the vaccine and respond positively to an employer-enforced employee vaccination mandate than those with lower levels of trust. 13 The inverse relationship was also found to be true in a survey completed by Boguslavsky et al., where concerns over data privacy and cybersecurity related to low con dence in government was cited as a major proponent for low vaccine uptake after the introduction of QR code-based vaccine certi cates in Russia. ...
Introduction
Since the beginning of the pandemic, numerous public health measures such as COVID-19 vaccines, vaccine mandates and vaccination certificates have been introduced to mitigate the spread of COVID-19. Public opinion and attitudes towards these measures have fluctuated in response to the dynamic political, social, and cultural landscape of the pandemic.
Methods
We conducted a time-series study consisting of national cross-sectional surveys between November 2021 to March 2022 to evaluate the Canadian public’s attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine mandates and vaccine certificates.
Results
When examining public sentiment towards COVID-19 vaccine certificates and proof of vaccination measures, there was a shift in responses over time. The proportion of participants “strongly supporting” these measures decreased from 66.0–43.1% between W25(Capacity Limits), –W32 (Mask Mandate Removed), whereas “strongly oppose” was the second most common response and rose from 15.9–20.6% during this same time period. Concurrently, when examining participants views surrounding mandates, many participants believed that their province was reopening at “about the right pace”, which remained relatively stable over time (33.0–35.4%) between W28 (Emergency Act)–W32 (Mask Mandate Removed).
Conclusion
Our study’s findings on the public’s attitudes towards COVID-19 vaccine mandates and vaccine certificates in Canada may aid to guide and streamline the implementation of future similar public health interventions. Future research should include extended follow-up and a more comprehensive examination of trust in government institutions and polarized perspectives on vaccine mandates.
... However, due to pre-mature results from the scientific investigation, which predicted a minimum impact, the government policy failed to take proactive actions to protect their people, and accordingly, the government has suffered from banning people's gatherings [26]. In addition, there has been a challenge associated with privacy-encroaching nature of a government policy as the European countries have strongly advocated people's privacy [33]. • US: In US, proper responses to the COVID-19 have been highly challenging as they become main issues by political parties. ...
Community resilience (CR) has been studied as an indicator to measure how well a given community copes with and recovers from a given disaster. Social–psychological community resilience (SPCR) has been used as a basis to determine public policy directions based on priority. Although the impact of the COVID-19 has been serious all over the world and interferes every aspect of our daily life, some countries have handled this disaster better than others due to their different disaster management policies and perceptions about the disaster. In this work, we are interested in measuring and analyzing SPCR through social media information in five different countries which can reflect different disaster management policies and perceptions toward the COVID-19. In the literature, measuring SPCR has been discussed, but the key attributes have not been agreed upon. We propose to use two attributes for measuring SPCR, i.e., community wellbeing (CW) and community capital (CC), because social and psychological resilience can be the firm basis for a community to be restored and reinvented into the so-called transformative community to ensure sustainability in the future generation. We use Tweeter data and investigate how each country shows different trends of SPCR in response to real and fake tweets generated during a COVID-19 period using machine learning and text-mining tools. We employ tweets generated in Australia (AUS), Singapore (SG), Republic of Korea (ROK), the United Kingdom (UK), and the United States (US), during March–November 2020 and measure the SPCR of each country and its associated attributes for analyzing the overall trends. Our results show that ROK among the five countries in our study has the highest level in CW, CC, and the resulting SPCR on real tweets reflecting reality, a result that matches well with the fact that ROK is resilient to COVID-19 during March–November 2020. Further, our results indicate that SPCR on real tweets is up to 80% higher than SPCR on fake tweets, suggesting that a much stronger community resilience may be achieved on real tweets. Finally, our results show that there is a negative correlation between SPCR values on fake and real tweets overall when considering all the tweets of the five countries to derive the overall trends. However, for each country, we observe a different correlation, either positive or negative, depending on each country. This implies that there should be further investigation of analyzing SPCR by considering unique cultural and national characteristics of each country.
... Many of the studies conducted during the COVID crisis have drawn an analogy between the COVID pandemic and terror attacks in terms of encouraging citizens to accept restrictions on their civil liberties. These studies mostly focused on the acceptance of COVID tracking technologies (Alsan et al., 2020;Lewandowsky et al., 2021;Wnuk et al., 2020) or quarantine enforcement measures (Alsan et al., 2020). They have found that, similar to terrorist attacks, perceived threat (Alsan et al., 2020;Cilizoglu et al., 2021;Wnuk et al., 2020), political trust (Cilizoglu et al., 2021), and authoritarianism (Cilizoglu et al., 2021;Wnuk et al., 2020) predict the acceptance of restrictive measures. ...
During the COVID-19 pandemic, some governments took measures to restrict political liberties, claiming that these restrictions were necessary to contain the spread of the virus. In this study, we scrutinize differences in citizens’ willingness to accept three types of political restrictions: restricting the media, banning protests, and introducing extensive state surveillance. We focus on two European countries: Austria and Hungary. While we find that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions, we also find that citizens differ in their willingness to support the three types of restrictions depending on whether the given measure affects them directly. We also find differences between Austria and Hungary concerning the way political trust and political values affect the acceptance of restrictions, which may be rooted in the larger polarization of Hungarian society. Furthermore, we observe that perceived health threats, political values, ideological orientation, and political trust are important predictors of accepting political restrictions.
... For example, a longitudinal study on changes in alcohol policies and public opinions in Finland (Österberg et al., 2014) demonstrates that the more citizens became aware of the increasing alcohol problem in their country, the more strongly they favored restrictive policies. Policy acceptance and compliance research in the domain of the COVID-19 pandemic also points to a crucial role of problem awareness (Harper et al., 2021;Lewandowsky et al., 2021). Recent work by Lewandowsky et al. (2021) on public acceptance of The extent to which people are aware that rising greenhouse-gas emissions have severe consequences for the environment and society. ...
... Policy acceptance and compliance research in the domain of the COVID-19 pandemic also points to a crucial role of problem awareness (Harper et al., 2021;Lewandowsky et al., 2021). Recent work by Lewandowsky et al. (2021) on public acceptance of The extent to which people are aware that rising greenhouse-gas emissions have severe consequences for the environment and society. ...
... Compared with control beliefs and political orientation, which both generally display characteristics shaping the proposed link between awareness of consequences and desire for governmental support, trust in the intervening agent clearly depends on who the agent is. Across decision-making domains and countries, empirical studies show that trust in the government and governmental institutions is essential for successful policy implementation (Evers et al., 2018;Eykelenboom et al., 2019;Harring & Jagers, 2013;Lewandowsky et al., 2021;Osman et al., 2018;Rodriguez-Sanchez et al., 2018;Sunstein et al., 2018Sunstein et al., , 2019. For example, a mixed-method systematic review and meta-analysis on the acceptability of a tax on sugar-sweetened beverages revealed public distrust of the government-besides perceived effectiveness, economic and socioeconomic benefit-to be an essential predictor (Eykelenboom et al., 2019). ...
The successful introduction of public policies to prompt behavior change hinges on the degree to which citizens endorse the proposed policies. Although there is a large body of research on psychological determinants of public policy acceptance, these determinants have not yet been synthesized into an integrative framework that proposes hypotheses about their interplay. In this article, we develop a review-based, integrative public-policy-acceptance framework that introduces the desire for governmental support as a motivational foundation in public-policy acceptance. The framework traces the route from problem awareness to policy acceptance and, ultimately, policy compliance. We propose this relationship to be mediated by a desire for governmental support. We integrate numerous key variables assumed to qualify the relationship between problem awareness and the desire for governmental support, such as control attributions, trust, and value fit, as well as the relationship between the desire for governmental support and policy acceptance, such as perceived policy effectiveness, intrusiveness, and fairness. We exemplify the use of the proposed framework by applying it to climate policies.
