COVID-19, national culture, and privacy calculus: factors predicting the cross-cultural acceptance and uptake of contact-tracing technologies

The use of information technologies for the public interest, such as COVID-19 tracking apps that aim to reduce the spread of COVID-19 during the pandemic, involve a dilemma between public interest benefits and privacy concerns. Critical in resolving this conflict of interest are citizens’ trust in the government and the risks posed by COVID-19. How much can the government be trusted to access private information? Furthermore, to what extend do the health benefits posed by the technology outweigh the personal risks to one's privacy? We hypothesize that citizens’ acceptance of the technology can be conceptualized as a calculus of privacy concerns, government trust, and the public benefit of adopting a potentially privacy-encroaching technology. The importance that citizens place on their privacy and the extent to which they trust their governments vary though out the world. The present study examined the public’s privacy calculus across nine countries (Australia, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, the United Kingdom, and the United States) focusing on social acceptance of contact-tracing technologies during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that across countries, privacy concerns were negatively associated with citizens’ acceptance of the technology, while government trust, perceived effectiveness of the technology, and the health threats of COVID-19 were positively associated. National cultural orientations moderate the effects of the basic factors of privacy calculus. In particular, individualism (value of the individual) amplified the effect of privacy concerns, whereas general trust (trust in the wider public) amplified the effect of government trust. National culture therefore requires careful attention in resolving public policy dilemmas of privacy, trust, and public interest.