Corona-apps in international comparison – insights from the EU, Asia and Latin America

Based on a comparative analysis of ‘Corona-Apps’ in the EU, Asia and Latin America, this paper discusses the nature, social effects, and regime implications of digital tools for the management of the COVID-19 pandemic. During the pandemic, governments around the world have implemented e-government tools that collected novel data about populations in order to surveil and control populations in the pandemic. In line with the aim of the proposed panel to account for the role of regimes in the deployment of big data, this paper engages in a reflection upon how these apps play out in different regimes in the EU, Asia and Latin America. The study relies upon in-depth case studies which are necessary in order to account for the different types of apps and to explore the sociopolitical conditions within which the apps unfold. The present study draws from existing literature about ‘Corona-Apps’ in the EU and Asia (AlgorithmWatch, 2020; Schneider & Creemers, 2020) and an empirical analysis of Latin American apps, conducted by Lena Ulbricht and co-authors (Ulbricht et al forthcoming). The comparison scrutinizes the structure and functions of the apps; the socio-political and regime conditions which determine their possible success; and the safeguard measures to protect citizen freedoms and rights. The findings indicate that the apps serve both service provision and rule enforcement purposes: they enable the self-diagnosis of citizens, communication between citizens and public health agencies, provision of authoritative information about the disease, its treatment, and overall infection trends, exposure alerts, mobility control, quarantine enforcement, etc. The sociopolitical conditions are in most cases not favorable to an effective use of the apps, due to lacking testing capacities and lax rule enforcement. Only a few authoritative regimes seem to succeed in attaining the stated goals of their app. In most cases, citizen rights and freedoms are not well protected. Instead, the apps collect sensitive mobility and health related data in a way that is not proportional to the officially stated aims of the apps. In addition, there is often very little transparency about the collection, storage, sharing and use of the data, and little accountability by public authorities. The similarities and differences between apps, sociopolitical and regime conditions, and rights protection follow only partly regional patterns. The international comparison however provides impulses for various debates about the effectiveness of e-government, isomorphism in digital policy, and digital colonialism. Literature AlgorithmWatch. (2020). Automating Society Report 2020. https://automatingsociety.algorithmwatch.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/12/Automating-Society-Report-2020.pdf Schneider, F., & Creemers, R. (2020). How Asia Confronts COVID-19 through Technology. Leiden Asia Centre. https://leidenasiacentre.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/05/LeidenAsiaCentre-How-Asia-Confronts-COVID-19-through-Technology-3.pdf Ulbricht, L., Iglesia Keller, Clara, & Rayman, D. (forthcoming). Corona apps and pandemic management: Population surveillance and control in seven Latin American countries (WZB Discussion Paper). WZB Berlin Social Science Center.