Data Management and Privacy Policy of COVID-19 Contact-Tracing Apps: Systematic Review and Content Analysis.

ABSTRACT:

Background

COVID-19 digital contact-tracing apps were created to assist public health authorities in curbing the pandemic. These apps require users' permission to access specific functions on their mobile phones, such as geolocation, Bluetooth or Wi-Fi connections, or personal data, to work correctly. As these functions have privacy repercussions, it is essential to establish how contact-tracing apps respect users' privacy.

Objective

This study aimed to systematically map existing contact-tracing apps and evaluate the permissions required and their privacy policies. Specifically, we evaluated the type of permissions, the privacy policies' readability, and the information included in them.

Methods

We used custom Google searches and existing lists of contact-tracing app

SUBMITTER: Bardus M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9278406 | biostudies-literature | 2022 Jul

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature