TECHNO-POLITICAL PROMISES OF PANDEMIC MANAGEMENT: A SITUATION OF APPS AND EXCEL IN PUBLIC HEALTH

Abstract

This article considers the politics and practicalities of responding to the COVID crisis with ‘an app for that’. It shows how seductive solutionism in times of crisis created political impetus to direct the public health response to contact tracing through Contact Tracing Apps (CTA). Rather than focus on user-based concerns (uptake, privacy, etc.), we’ve investigated how apps interface with complex systems and infrastructures of public health. Our 21 expert informants from five developed nations offered insight into the machinations of contact tracing from ‘the coal face’ up to executive technical and policy decisions including national CTA development and deployment. We learned that beneath the shiny veneer of an app is the messy certitude of Excel and tech-debt, politics, and mundane organizational technique that worked amidst each other to shape public health. Our approach provides a more nuanced understanding of the interfaces of CTA and digital epidemiology than current App narratives allow. While a healthy and critical literature on digital app interventions into COVID-19 has developed, there has not been critical consideration of these apps informed by insights from those responsible for designing, implementing, and making use of these digital tools. We redress this research imbalance by considering how user-centric narratives of the platformization of public health can gloss over what situational analysis (Clarke et al., 2016) might better uncover. This paints a more nuanced picture of digital epidemiology than current App narratives provide to address the contingent promises and failures related to these digital technologies.