Investigating factors that affect the adoption of COVID-19 contact-tracing apps: A privacy calculus perspective.

Abstract

the German government issued a coronavirus disease 19 (COVID-19) contact-tracing app whose privacy settings were fiercely debated in advance. Contrary, potential benefits regarding the acceleration of contact tracing were advertised. This study investigated the relative importance of privacy concerns and perceived benefits in relation to the decision to use the app adopting a privacy calculus perspective extended by trust in app privacy and technological knowledge about the app. Results of a representative German sample (N = 952) revealed that privacy concerns were negatively related to app usage, and perceived benefits and knowledge were positively related to actual app adoption. Additionally, perceiving app benefits was the most important factor for (continued) usage intention, while privacy concerns did not play a role anymore. Trust was strongly negatively associated with privacy concerns and strongly positively with perceived benefits. Results are discussed concerning consequences for communication strategies when launching technology whose adoption should help in mitigating dangers of pandemics.

What Went Wrong with the IMMUNI Contact-Tracing App in Italy? A Cross-Sectional Survey on the Attitudes and Experiences among Healthcare University Students

“…Interestingly, our findings contrast with a few international studies that report how concerns about data privacy can negatively impact DCT app adoption [ 16 , 31 , 37 , 38 ]. This could be explained by the fact that, compared to other, similar apps, IMMUNI collects relatively few data [ 39 ].…”

Examining the Prediction of COVID-19 Contact-Tracing App Adoption Using an Integrated Model and Hybrid Approach Analysis

“…The information system literature about the technology adoption model primarily predicts behavioral intention, usage intention, or adoption intention as the dependent variable. Most of the studies investigate this variable predictive power through PLS-SEM ( 10 , 34 , 39 ) or CB-SEM ( 35 – 37 , 41 ). One of the primary criteria used to examine the model's predictive capacity is the coefficient of determination ( R 2 ).…”

“…This study offers an evidence-based, situation-specific concern to understand better the theoretical and practical significance of CTA adoption in KSA. The literature review shows that most of the contact tracing apps adoption where conducted in liberal countries ( 10 , 11 , 34 – 41 ). According to the existing studies, the unified theory of acceptance and use of technology (UTAUT), privacy calculus theory (PCT), and extended technology adoption model (eTAM) dominated the studies of CTA adoption.…”

Learning From the Past to Improve the Future

“…Walrave et al (2020) highlight the ethical and legal concerns that users have about digital contact tracing and call for a transparent relationship with users and clear processing of their information. Two perspectives prevail in the existing research (Table 2): The first perspective investigates users' intentions to use contact tracing apps in terms of motivations and barriers (Altmann et al 2020;Li et al 2020;Meier et al 2021;Walrave et al 2020), and the second applies conjoint analysis to study user preferences for the privacy-aware design of these apps (Degeling et al 2020;Zhang et al 2020;Buder et al 2020;Jonker et al 2020).…”

“…Because of the slow adoption rates, von Wyl et al (2020) called for more research on the acceptability of contact tracing apps to provide an understanding of the rationale behind their use. Some of the first empirical studies that responded to this call are Trang et al (2020), who analyze the impact of various app specifications (i.e., benefit appeal, privacy design, and convenience design) on app acceptance, as well as Meier et al (2021) and Welrave et al (2020), who examine users' intentions to use contact tracing apps in light of privacy concerns. Other studies have analyzed how more users can adopt contact tracing apps.…”