Maynooth University
Analysis: social and community bonds in Ireland remain strong and people see
the app as an individual and collective response to the pandemic
Last weekend I downloaded the
<https://www.gov.ie/en/service/da832-download-the-covid-tracker-app/> COVID
Tracker app. Over a million of us have done so, a download rate which has
come as something of a surprise at home and abroad. The rate of download is
high compared to other countries where the app is voluntary, and it is high
as a percentage of the total population. How can we explain the download
rate of this application in Ireland? The answer lies somewhere in the
structures of social belonging, inclusion and exclusion in Ireland.
In this together
Despite widespread talk of individualism,
<https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/jane-gray#1> research in the
<https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/sociology> Department of Sociology at
Maynooth University has
<https://www.maynoothuniversity.ie/people/mary-corcoran> found that social
and community bonds in Ireland remain strong. After the 2008 financial
crisis, these bonds were crucial to helping communities recover.
Today, we are faced with another crisis and many of us experience it
directly or indirectly through our extended social networks. Many have lost
friends and family, while many know frontline workers who got infected, or
who went above and beyond their pay grade to protect us all. We saw clusters
of outbreaks in care homes, factories and direct provision centres. The
impact of years of austerity on our social services and the outsourcing and
undervaluing of care starkly revealed. Citizens feel vulnerable and
disempowered. Many want to help. Many travelled from abroad to help.
We also experienced the pandemic through national and online media. Citizens
went looking for trusted sources of information. At the beginning of the
lockdown in March, people turned to trusted broadcast and print media and
listened to experts explain the latest number of deaths, infections and the
R rate broadcast each evening.
Online media also provided social contact and information, but is also
vulnerable to <https://en.unesco.org/fightfakenews> misinformation and
disinformation. Misleading information sometimes comes from well-meaning
friends and neighbours. Sometimes disinformation came from unknown groups in
an orchestrated attempt to spread false information. During the pandemic
<https://www.bemediasmart.ie/about> Media Literacy Ireland re-ran its
<https://www.rte.ie/brainstorm/2019/0319/1037227-why-it-matters-to-be-media-
smart/> Be Media Smart campaign. We were asked to Stop, Think and Check our
news and information.
Will we actually use the app?
Structures of social belonging and feelings of vulnerability may help to
explain why people downloaded the app, but will they be sufficient to get
people to use the app? Studies of technology in society argue that the
successful diffusion of a technology requires both that the design of a
technology is inclusive, and that people trust the organisations who are
providing the service to fulfil their claims about the technology. In other
words, can I use the technology and is it effective?
People feel similarly about smart phone applications and services. Our
<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/full/10.1177/2053951720915939> research
has shown that the public expects data-driven services to be ethical and for
developers and governments to share responsibility for governing and
delivering on this expectation. Transparent processes and an ethics or
privacy by design approach are especially crucial in public health
technology projects where personal and health data is involved. Otherwise,
they will be discarded quickly.
Information and transparency
Do people feel included in the design process and interface of the COVID
Tracker app? Two months ago, we did not know who was developing this
application, what technical architecture was being chosen, and if it would
be mandatory or voluntary. There was a lack of information and transparency
about who was behind the project and what it aimed to do.
The Irish Council of Civil Liberties
<https://www.iccl.ie/tag/contact-tracing-app/> mobilised a group of
concerned academics, scientists and other civil society groups to raise
potential human rights and data privacy issues in relation to the
development of the app. They wrote letters to the
<https://www.gov.ie/en/organisation/department-of-health/> Department of
Health, released press releases and developed a principled framework to
inform the design of the contact tracing app in early June. Academics
downloaded the technologies being used elsewhere in the world and ran tests
on the Luas and Dublin Bus. The focus of their efforts was to question the
efficacy, need, function and reach of the application. It was also to focus
attention on transparency and accountability.
During the development period, a range of public and private sector
organisations and academic experts were involved or consulted during the
development and design process. The infrastructure and design evolved and
was clearly informed by developments elsewhere in Europe. The process is
recalled in
<https://www.nearform.com/blog/inside-the-collaborative-effort-behind-irelan
ds-covid-tracker-app/> a recent blog post by the Waterford based company who
developed the app, <https://www.nearform.com/> Nearform.
What the app actually is
What has emerged is not just a contact tracing app, but a multi-functional
app. The contact tracker function uses
<https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/experts-how-does-bluetooth-work/
Bluetooth technology and stores data locally on the phone to conform toprivacy and data protection regulation in Europe. The symptom function is
