National approaches for citizen data management in response to COVID-19: An overview and implications of contact tracing apps in 21 countries

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic brings the topic of citizen data management (CDAMA) into the public eye. This study is one of the first attempts to analyze the national approaches for CDAMA applied by governments of different countries and continents in public sectors. The study first conducts a systematic overview of the representative contact tracing apps in 21 countries of four continents, collecting information of the four aspects of the CDAMA system. It then summarizes and analyzes the various governments’ approaches to the CDAMA system applied by different countries and continents based on the app overview. We found that governments’ priority between national safety (i.e., public health in this study) and citizen privacy is different in terms of their national approaches for CDAMA. For example, governments of Asian countries are more intrusive and hold a stricter attitude in their national CDAMA approach than countries elsewhere. Our study has contributions both theoretically and practically. Theoretically, it fills the literature gap about data management by discussing the data management in governments; practically, the study provides the background information as well as implications for future debates and discussions on governments’ data management system and citizen data use.