Introduction to the Special Issue on Security and Privacy for COVID-19

The onset of the COVID-19 pandemic brought with it a wave of technological development, which came with a dramatic increase in surveillance risks. In this special issue, we sought submissions of research papers, experience papers, and field notes focusing on four areas of security and privacy research related to COVID-19: (1) measurement, evaluation, and certification of security and privacy issues (or lack thereof) with COVID-19 contact tracing apps; (2) human factors related to security and privacy of COVID-19 contact tracing apps; (3) systemic and individual risks of digital tracing; and (4) cryptographic techniques for privacy preserving data collection, contact tracing, and data analysis.

We begin this issue with a longitudinal examination of privacy concerns and contact tracing by Simko et al. In “ COVID-19 Contact Tracing and Privacy: A Longitudinal Study of Public Opinion,” Simko et al. trace the attidutes of respondents over 8 months regarding the use of COVID-19 contact tracing apps, finding that proper privacy design and privacy communication are critical to app uptake.

Next, Stojkovski et al. present “‘ Unless One Does the Research, It May Seem as Just a Useless Battery-consuming App’—Field Notes on COVID-19 Contact Tracing Applications,” which summarizes eight focus groups with French and German contact tracing app users, which were conducted to understand why these users chose to adopt these apps and what barriers they faced.

In “ How Good Is Good Enough? Quantifying the Impact of Benefits, Accuracy, and Privacy on Willingness to Adopt COVID-19 Decision Aids,” Kaptchuk et al. build prediction models of the population’s likelihood to install COVID-19 apps given a specific level of accuracy and privacy in order to determine when the apps are good enough to release and garner sufficient adoption.

We close our issue with two forward-looking pieces. In “ SwissCovid in the Perspective of Its Goals,” Vaudenay and Vuagnoux argue that the accuracy of contact tracing apps may not outweigh the potential downside of their use; while Boutet et al. look toward a future for next generation contact tracing apps. In “ DESIRE: Leveraging the Best of Centralized and Decentralized Contact Tracing Systems,” they discuss potential directions for the next generation of contact tracing apps that combine elements of both centralized and decentralized approaches.

We are excited about the ways in which each piece challenges us to think about the future of pandemic and public health technologies through a privacy and security lens.

We thank the authors, reviewers, and staff of ACM DTRAP for making this special issue possible.

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