What Happened to Digital Contact Tracing’s Summer of Potential?
Digital contact tracing systems had a brief moment in the sun in the summer of 2020, but quickly withered away. Courtesy of Stephen Groves/Associated Press.
In the summer of 2020, when most countries were cherishing the quiet before the second peak in COVID-19 cases, the non-profit I was volunteering at was bustling with activity. It had developed an open-source digital contact tracing system—one of those smartphone apps that tracks one’s whereabouts and sends notifications if the user had been exposed to COVID-19.
“Do you want to join one of our meetings?” was the offer of a volunteer I met at a (virtual) university event. He knew I was researching public use of highly contentious technology. I could not turn down the opportunity to peek into the decision-making process of an organization providing one of those technologies to governments.
Four months later, I was still attending those meetings, and it was becoming clear how inadequately digital data and public health often intersect. Most of the public health officials we were meeting with did not seem prepared to include digital contact tracing apps in their operations, but governments wanted them anyway. So, their contractors were seeking the support of technology providers like the non-profit to deliver apps that were promising to slow the spread of the infection and still preserve privacy. Even now, one year later, there is limited evidence that those apps can accomplish both objectives. But in the midst of the pandemic, when the spread of the Coronavirus seemed uncontrollable, it was easy to be seduced by a pre-packaged solution.
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