Abstract
Contact tracing apps have magnified the potential usefulness of mobile media and communication technologies for responding to disruptive events such as the COVID-19 pandemic. Their efficacy and ethical debates have become the focus of recent studies in the Global North. Reasons for using contact tracing apps among users with disability living in the Global South, however, seem to be understudied. Through cases from Indonesia and Vietnam, this study found that nationalistic values were among the reasons for using contact tracing apps as reflected in the users’ faith in the state and inclination to support its collective objective to control the pandemic. The users believed the state would be accountable in managing the personal and mobility data the contact tracing apps collected. Using contact tracing apps represented the users’ sense of capabilities to individually partake in the existing efforts to control the pandemic.
The deployment of contact tracing apps (CTAs) has highlighted the usefulness of mobile technologies for battling the COVID-19 pandemic. CTAs have been designed to accrue people’s mobility data, which authorities later promoted as necessary for flattening the infection curve, zoning high risk areas, and forcing people to stay in shelter. Health surveillance has become more efficient as data related to where people go and with whom they have close contact become more accessible and shareable within the health system. In several European countries, the belief that CTAs will help monitor the virus spread has become a prominent reason for people to use them (Zimmermann et al., 2021). A CTA’s ethical elements, primarily around personal data protection and privacy policies, however, raise concerns, in addition to the political economic ramifications of access to such data by those in power (Pagliari, 2020). CTAs, while magnifying the usefulness of mobile media and communication technologies for addressing a pressing public health problem, also potentially unleash threats from the accumulation of personal and mobility data by the powerful without transparent rules on data access, use, storage, and retention (Lee, 2021).
Such a socio-technical understanding of CTAs, however, has mainly stemmed from the context of the Global North and high-income countries. The pandemic has been more economically detrimental to poor countries (Stiglitz, 2020), of which many have been historically disadvantaged by multi-layered legacies of colonialism. Countries in the Global South have resorted to the inconclusive promise of various new technological tools, including CTAs, for redressing public health problems while simultaneously facing the lingering constraints of technological solutions as the digital divide widens during the pandemic (International Telecommunication Union, 2021). The deployment of CTAs has ignored the facts that not everyone has the capability to reallocate their depleting incomes during the pandemic to afford the Internet and that some of the CTAs’ features are inaccessible to screen-reader and talk-back users or incompatible with their model of mobile phone.
While the COVID-19 virus does not discriminate between non-disabled and disabled individuals, much pandemic-related information and technological solutions limitedly meet the need of users with disability (UwD). Reasons for using CTAs and related ethical debates have mainly revolved around non-disabled users even though UwD are greatly affected by the pandemic given their pre-existing vulnerabilities, systemic discriminations, and limited access to political and economic opportunities (Aguilar, 2020). Centering on UwD therefore potentially contributes to halting the perpetual marginalization of vulnerable groups in responses to critical situations such as pandemics and alike (O’Sullivan & Phillips, 2019). Specifically, studying UwD in the Global South can mitigate the unequal production of knowledge pertaining to the intersection of disabilities and mobile communication technologies that have reportedly been skewed to wealthy, rich, individualistic, and democratic countries in the Global North (Goggin, 2018).
With that in mind, the present study aims to discover nuances surrounding the use of CTAs among UwD living in Indonesia and Vietnam. The two countries are in the Global South and have used CTAs to manage the pandemic; thus offering relevant cases to illuminate the socio-cultural reasons for using CTAs situated within middle- and low-income countries. Given the complexity of the pandemic situations of the two countries, as well as the socio-political dynamics affecting them, it is not our intention to compare the usefulness of CTAs. Rather, we intend to show the reason for CTA use among UwD as a single case. The next section describes the context of this study and highlights the pandemic situations in the two countries at the time of writing this article.
The pandemic and CTAs in Indonesia and Vietnam
Vietnam and Indonesia have common characteristics but are politically different. They both are members of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) with decades of bilateral relationships. The two countries represent, respectively, the largest socialist-communism and democracy in the region. Vietnam’s economy has grown exponentially since it joined the World Trade Organization in 2007 (Sakata, 2013) but the freedom to opine and respect for human rights remain minimal (Freedom House, 2020). Indonesia is the biggest market in the region and has been the champion of democracy since the fall of President Soeharto in 1998. Although it still has a greater freedom than Vietnam does, crackdowns on critics are reportedly on the rise under President Joko Widodo’s administration (Hamid & Hermawan, 2020).
Nationalism has marked various health communication programs in the two countries prior to and during the pandemic. In Indonesia during President Soeharto’s administration, the nation-building spirit was ingrained in family planning campaigns (Dwyer, 2000). During the pandemic, civic nationalism has characterized public solidarity and the government’s approach to securing vaccines (Djumala, 2021). Similarly, Vietnamese nationalism, which was rooted in the country’s war experience, has buttressed the health communication strategies the government deploys to defeat the virus (Le, 2020).
In January 2022, the fight to defeat the pandemic in Indonesia and Vietnam was still ongoing. From July to August 2021, anyone might have heard at least three funeral announcements broadcasted by their local mosque in Java, Indonesia. Photos of overwhelmed graveyards inundated social and mass media. International news outlets even reported the country as the new pandemic epicenter (Paddock et al., 2021). In Vietnam, which received abundant praise for its successful response to the pandemic in 2020, a new outbreak starting in late April 2021 had increased the fatality rate from fewer than 100 to over 14,000 by September 2021 (Tatarski, 2021). The government imposed a series of strict lockdowns to control the virus spread. In August, military and police personnel were deployed to highly affected areas for distributing necessities as most businesses were halted (Reuters, 2021b). Both Indonesia and Vietnam aimed to vaccinate their populations to avoid the pandemic’s deeper economic repercussions.
The pandemic has lowered public trust in both governments. Trust in the Vietnamese government has declined from 97% in 2020 to 84% in 2021 (United Nations Development Programme [UNDP], 2021). In Indonesia, trust in the president’s ability to tackle the pandemic fell from 56.5% to 43% in mid-2021 (Reuters, 2021a). Despite its declining trend during the peak of the Delta variant outbreak in the two countries, trust has been asserted as pivotal in the public’s inclination to adhere to the state’s pandemic measures (Pramiyanti et al., 2020; Vu, 2021).
In Indonesia and Vietnam, where the second and first authors respectively lived at the time of writing this article, CTAs were widely implemented as a part of the pandemic response. The Indonesian government strongly encouraged citizens to use the Pedulilindungi app. Only a small percentage of the society initially used it, though usage greatly increased once mandatory declarations of vaccination status took effect. The Vietnamese government initially mandated its citizens to use Bluezone and NCOVi apps. Bluezone was a private and state-developed CTA whereas NCOVI was fully developed by the state. Later, the Vietnamese government introduced PCCovid that merged various health surveillance apps for a simpler contact tracing system. Scanning the apps’ QR codes became a new ritual as failing to declare health status would lead to rejections to enter many public places. The efficacy of CTAs in helping mitigate the spread of the virus has been observationally modest and understudied given the two countries’ complex socio-technical, public health governance, and cultural contexts.
Regulations pertaining to personal data protection and privacy in the two countries vary and spread across different laws. In Indonesia, the Electronic Information and Transaction (EIT) Law is a primary source referred for electronic information while a draft Bill on the Protection of Private Personal Data has been discussed for many years. In Vietnam, the Cybersecurity Law and Network Information Security Law were the main documents regulating data protection. Indonesia and Vietnam have been respectively categorized as having limited and moderate regulations concerning data protection (DLA Piper, 2021). As per CTAs’ terms of use and agreements in both countries, personal and health data shared within CTAs will be secured and protected.
The deployment of CTAs has signaled a big win for surveillance and datafication through mobile devices. State and privately sponsored CTA developers have taken advantage of the pandemic situations for accumulating user data (French et al., 2020). Although health surveillance can still play an important role in tackling public health problems, the questions of who will have access to the data and what for are unclear, hence increasing the risk of abuse and misuse of users’ personal data (Lanzing, 2020). This is particularly concerning as privacy and personal data protection become secondary considerations when the need to save lives has become the primary narrative for tracing people’s mobility and contacts. In that regard, the deployment of CTAs has manifested the negative externality of a recent mobile, technological innovation for managing disruptive events.
Further, the state connects the deployment of CTAs, together with other pandemic measures, with a sense of nationalism. In Southeast Asia, from Singapore, Malaysia, to Indonesia, the pandemic messaging strategies have revolved around saving the community and togetherness for protecting the country. The pandemic has even reportedly been used by authoritarian regimes for bolstering citizens’ affinity for their own country (Hamid, 2020). In Vietnam, which has been known for its static politics and autocracy, the pandemic has become an open stage for the government to demonstrate a performative care for the people and to polish the image of the military as public allies during difficult times (Hayton & Ngheo, 2020). The pandemic has boosted support for autocratic and pragmatic approaches to public governance (Eck & Hatz, 2020), as state actors painted justifications for numerous actions potentially promoting inequity and tyranny, such as forced immobility, zoning system, surveillance, and mandatory health declarations, with a sense of nationalism.
Besides the state’s messaging strategies, the reason for adopting CTAs is the users’ belief in their capability in giving pandemic-related information and helping mitigate the risk of being exposed to COVID-19 infectants. Although CTAs’ technical aspects such as a battery drainage due to Bluetooth usage can be dissatisfying (Garousi & Cutting, 2021), an early adoption of CTAs has been pointed out as one explanation for low death rates in Asian and European upper-middle- and high-income countries (Zeng et al., 2020). In other European countries, users with high willingness to trade off their privacy tend to support the use of CTAs in pandemic responses (Lucivero et al., 2021).
CTA use and disability issues
The deployment of CTAs can become a contributing factor to the digital divide. Like the unintended consequences of other Internet-based mobile media in widening the gap between those who can and cannot afford a smartphone and the Internet and between non-disabled and disabled users (Alper, 2017), the deployment of CTAs has demonstrated another area of neglect to the needs of UwD. A CTA’s interface and design can be inaccessible to the assistive technologies used by those who identify themselves as blind. Although the deployment of CTAs, together with their positive and negative externalities, has become an integral part of pandemic responses around the globe (Chan & Saqib, 2021), policy makers have paid minimal attention to their technological affordability and accessibility, primarily when downloading CTAs later became mandatory prior to accessing public places or crossing international borders. Thus, their deployment, at least in the early stage of the pandemic, signifies the absence of disability rights, widening the digital divide arising from the introduction of new technological innovations to the public (Goggin & Newell, 2007).
The pandemic has further marginalized people with disability (PwD). The cause is largely rooted in the inconsistent implementation of the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities (UNCRPD) (Cogburn & Reuter, 2017). Access to health care services, which had been limited before the pandemic, has become even more challenging as many infrastructures to keep them functioning were halted in an attempt to control the pandemic. As remote working and schooling became a common practice, many platforms designed for facilitating such purposes continue to offer limited technological accessibility to UwD. Broadly, the pandemic has magnified the multidimensional barriers that PwD faced before the pandemic and, if these remain unaddressed, there is the potential for the creation of new barriers to the needs of PwD being met. Mainstreaming disability rights in Pandemic Preparedness Response and Recovery Plans has been a suggested method for better protecting the dignity of PwD during disruptive events (United Nations, 2020).
Building on the above studies, which have mainly been situated within the context of upper-income countries and non-disabled users, the present study focuses on UwD living in two Southeast Asian lower- and middle-income countries. Although disability rights have been advocated in pandemic response plans, limited efforts to equally protect PwD from the ramifications of the pandemic persist (Mehrotra & Soldatic, 2021). In past decades, the intersection between technologies and disabilities has generally revolved around improving access (Goggin et al., 2019). CTAs have exemplified a rapid, global adoption of a mobile app in a volatile time. Their emergence as a part of international pandemic responses has shown new ways of aggregating and using mobility data for keeping the nations healthy (Goggin, 2020). Their usefulness has been juxtaposed with their efficacy and personal data protection matters (Pagliari, 2020). But a limited understanding of the use of CTAs in the groups which have been historically marginalized, such as UwD, remains understudied. As mobile apps, CTAs reflect a lack of inclusive mindset of their developers, resulting in the low accessibility of CTAs’ features to blind and visually impaired users. In lower-middle-income countries, their deployment as a pandemic measure to some extent stems from policy makers’ frantic intention to keep up with what seems to work in developed countries, hence overlooking local contexts and the diverse needs of UwD in their own countries.
With the foregoing discussion in mind, this study asks:
Besides the perceived efficacy of CTAs in curbing the pandemic, why do UwD living in the Global South (i.e., Vietnam and Indonesia) use them? How do such reasons for the use of CTAs reflect the values of UwD as citizens?
Method
To answer the above research questions, we interviewed 28 Vietnamese and 25 Indonesian people with disability in the first quarter of 2021. Out of a total of 53 interviewees, 27 were women and, respectively, 23, 19, and five interviewees identified themselves as people with motor, vision, and hearing disabilities. Two interviewees identified themselves as dwarfs and one interviewee did not want to be identified. Their average age was 33 years old. Access to the disabled community was obtained in two ways. First, one researcher in Indonesia approached a leader of a local community organization who then provided referrals to potential interviewees. Second, one researcher, who was a member of a local organization of PwD in Vietnam, used their pre-existing relationship with organization members to recruit interviewees. Given that approach in participant recruitments, our findings might only represent a segment of PwD that our research team could access. Most interviewees reported that they had at least one social media platform (e.g., Facebook), indicating their ability to use digital platforms and, potentially, CTAs. Informed by our understanding of the literature and context of the study as well as prior informal interactions with members of disabled communities from 2019 to 2020, we used semi-structured interview method and the following key questions as a guide a) What is your opinion about the deployment of CTA[s] during the pandemic? b) How do you feel about sharing your personal data within CTA[s]? c) Do you think the government will responsibly use the personal data the CTA[s] collected and why? Due to self-isolation periods and other pandemic measures in place during the data collection period, a remote interview method was employed. Initially, Skype, G-meet, WhatsApp, and Facebook calls were used but some interviewees, particularly those living in rural areas of Indonesia, regularly experienced unstable Internet connections. In those cases, phone calls were preferred. The interviewees received vouchers or cash to buy prepaid phone and Internet data before participating in 45–90-minute interviews. All the interviews in Vietnam were in the Vietnamese language with a substantial influence of northern dialect. Interviews in Indonesia were in the Javanese language and Bahasa Indonesia. Interviews with deaf people were assisted by local sign language interpreters. Blind people used talk-back or screen reader apps. Otherwise, caregivers accompanied participants and helped the researcher communicate with the interviewees during the interviews. The interviewees signed consent forms prior to participating in the study. For privacy reasons, their names have been altered in this article.
All interview transcripts from both countries were treated as a single dataset, which we then iteratively analyzed together. Our intention was to seek reasons for using CTAs among UwD residing in the two countries rather than comparing their behaviors. The above research questions and relevant literature guided the analysis (Corbin & Strauss, 2008). We read each interview transcript multiple times to understand its content and the interviewees’ life experiences. Later, we deduced several themes emerging from the research team’s discussions (Patton, 2002), where we shared our interpretations of the interviewees’ experiences and utterances related to CTA use. In this process, we aimed to maintain the voices of the interviewees as much as possible while at the same time attempting to theorize them. As such, the findings presented in the later section originated from the interviewees’ understanding of their own worlds and our understanding of the literature and interaction with them (Charmaz, 2006).
Findings
Faith in the state and an intent to support the collective goal to defeat the pandemic were among the reasons for UwD in Indonesia and Vietnam to use CTAs besides their belief in the efficacy of CTAs for controlling the pandemic. These reasons reflected a nationalistic value, which has historically underpinned the broader effort to protect and build the nation, that the state galvanized for gaining support for pandemic responses. The use of CTAs, although giving UwD the belief of being able to protect themselves and their community independently, manifested the inclination of UwD to partake in the national effort to tackle the pandemic. The following sections elaborate on each reason for UwD to use CTAs.
Faith in the state
All UwD participating in this study implied that their faith in the state was a consideration for using CTAs. A deep trust that the state would responsibly use personal data collected by the CTAs was a basis for willingly adopting them. UwD put a premium on the state’s highest position of governing society. In that sense, using CTAs reflected not only trust in their efficacy but also trust in those who had access to the personal data that CTAs accumulated during the pandemic. A Bluezone user said: Personal data collected by the app [Bluezone] is used to detect infected people and prevent the spread of COVID. I trust the government will use such data responsibly. The government is the highest agency; it serves the people, no personal purposes, so I totally believe them. (Mai)
The view that the government was performing a social service gave confidence in how personal data collected by CTAs would be used. There was a belief that the state was meant to serve the people. Thus, its potential to use personal data irresponsibly was inconceivable. During the pandemic, trusting the state was essential and using CTAs embodied UwD’s support for any attempts the state enacted to curb the pandemic. Another UwD also expressed a similar notion to this one: This Bluezone app is good as it not only helps protect myself, but also other people during the pandemic. I installed it immediately after it was released. This app is reliable because it isn’t developed or presided over by individuals or private companies, but by Vietnam’s Ministry of Information and Communication and Ministry of Health. I have trust in the government usage of the data collected through that app. They will use that data for detecting whether we have close contact with those who have Covid-19, thereby, protecting the community against the pandemic. (Toan)
In that circumstance, the “personal” aspect of the data was given up as sharing it became an ingredient for defeating the pandemic, in addition to protecting oneself. Thus, “personal” information gradually became “public” as state entities gained access to it. Total trust in the state’s perceived accountability, together with a modest awareness of privacy and data protection rights, fostered a broad view that the CTA data would not be misused. A UwD said: I think this app is good because we don’t know whether the people whom we have contact with have Covid or not. This app will alert us if we have been in direct contact with infected people. The personal data collected through the app will be used to protect the health of the public, allowing for checking if someone was infected or visited areas with active cases. I believe that the government will protect the data [we shared]. Because if we don’t break the law, then they do not need to hold it against us. (Anh)
The comment suggests that a double layer of trust outweighed the ethical ramifications that might arise from the deployment of CTAs as a pandemic measure. Surrendering personal data was necessary when the need to protect public health emerged. The pandemic was about life and death. Hence, despite the foreseeable issues surrounding privacy and personal data protection, using CTAs manifested the UwD’s good faith in the state, in combination with trust in their own ability to obey laws. As the idea of nationalism was misconstrued with the absence of critical questions regarding the state’s policies, faith in the state was expected. Among UwD, who were often labeled as burdens to society, the state was historically seen as a symbol of protection and unification.
We also found that data protection and privacy issues surrounding CTA use, particularly in Vietnam, were less apparent among UwD. The Vietnamese government’s strong political track record could be an explanation for that. Given its strong role, the Vietnamese government had the capacity to collect, use, and share personal data for many different reasons. Such activities were often depicted as attempts to maintain social harmony and build the nation. At the time of data collection, the Vietnamese government had demonstrated a capability to manage the pandemic by deploying many pandemic countermeasures, including a mandatory download of CTAs. A UwD explained: On the government side, I believe that they will use that data responsibly. Because this app [Bluezone] serves a specific and clear purpose. And if desired, the government will have many ways to get user data, not only by this app. Besides this, to date with what the government has done so well in controlling the Covid-19, it is the result of collective measures such as data collection, evaluation, and solutions to achieve that efficacy. (Giap)
High trust in the state stemmed from the UwD’s perception of the efficacy of the pandemic response plans the state had deployed. Hence, sharing personal data within CTAs did not cause anxiety. To some extent, Giap believed that the success of the pandemic response was linked to the state’s capability to use such data. This understanding was rooted in the high trust in the state’s perceived ability to act responsibly before the pandemic, the efficacy of pandemic response, and the state’s potential ability to recover after the pandemic. In other words, trusting the state was reasonable as Giap had not considered otherwise when downloading and sharing his personal data within a CTA.
The collective objective
Paired with faith in the state, UwD used CTAs because of their inclination to be part of a collective objective to defeat the pandemic. In this sense, using CTAs was a way of demonstrating good citizenship when the state was facing difficult times. As citizens, supporting the state was essential, particularly when there was a belief that they had nothing else to offer to advance the state given their disabilities. A UwD in Indonesia said: As good citizens, we support it [the deployment of CTAs]. … As our effort to become good citizens, we must support all government programs [including the use of CTAs]. If we cannot give anything [to the government], then we have to continuously support it. (Agung)
The spirit to help the government manifested in a willingness to use CTAs, without doubt. It was the citizens’ responsibility to answer the state’s call for support to defeat the pandemic. If they were unable to contribute to the fight because of physical and financial constraints, then using CTAs was a meaningful way to express their love for their country. The state, in this respect, was seen as responsible and having good intentions to protect all citizens. When the state called for help, the appropriate answer was to comply. Otherwise, the portrayal of the ideal citizen would become tainted. This view was ingrained in people’s minds, as history has depicted. The collective objective to defeat the colonizers had helped the state to gain freedom. A similar spirit to reawaken such an expression of nationalism reappeared during the pandemic, which had been depicted as a common enemy that could only be defeated if the country was united and every citizen contributed to the collective fight.
Given that, the use of CTAs symbolized an individual commitment to the collective cause as a country. If everyone used CTAs, then they would protect themselves, their relatives, and their communities, as one UwD stated: This app helps us to know if we have been in contact with people having Covid-19 or not. When we declare our health status, we are joining hands to curb the transmission of the virus. The government is supposed to protect the rights of its citizens. If the government disclose or lose people’s information, it’ll result in a loss of trust among the public. Also, this [using CTAs] is the call and advice from the government, not private business or individuals. Therefore, I believe that the data will be secure, and the government will use that data responsibly. (Diem)
“Joining hands,” which broadly amplified the national spirit of Indonesians’ “gotong royong menghadapi COVID” [working together againts COVID] or Vietnamese’s “chung sức đồng lòng chong dich COVID,” [let's join hands to fight COVID] was a reason for using CTAs. Parables with imagery of “joining hands” have been ingrained in the minds of Indonesian and Vietnamese citizens from a young age through primary education curriculums, textbooks, and many forms of nation-building campaigns. Such educational efforts resulted in a predisposition to support the state, which resurfaced as the pandemic was portrayed as a common enemy. In this respect, the state, as the largest entity having the power to govern society, would take all necessary actions to protect its citizens and maintain their trust. On the other hand, individuals, as smaller entities in the existing socio-political equation, were expected to partake in helping the state succeed. Hence, protecting themselves was commensurable with protecting the nation they loved dearly. The willingness to use CTAs, which were seen as capable of giving a sense of protection from the virus, was a manifestation of the UwD’s concrete contribution to the state’s effort to defeat the pandemic.
In other words, no one was safe unless everyone was. This was achievable if everyone trusted the state and simultaneously exercised their individual agency to keep the virus at bay. Using CTAs was seen as offering such an opportunity. Using them would not only support the national effort to flatten the infection curve but also allow individuals to protect themselves and their loved ones at the same time. Another Indonesian UwD pointed out the efficacy of CTAs to cater to both individual and collective needs to control the pandemic: The use of contacting tracing apps can become a good thing. So far, we receive information from the province health department. Sometimes we find information about COVID on Facebook. If we can individually trace the infection zones, that will be good. So, we can follow the development of infection cases independently and share it with others who need it. (Ngatini)
The predisposition to using CTAs constituted the collective objective to defeat the pandemic. CTAs provided a sense of having options as to what information, from whom, and from where UwD could use to protect themselves and others. Facebook, one of the most used proprietary social media platforms in Indonesia and Vietnam, offered as much quality information as misinformation. It was still useful but required further verifications. Information from the health department, although instilled with an authoritative notion of an official source, could be limited and slow. Using CTAs allowed UwD to independently follow COVID-19-related information and share it with others. With this knowledge, the need to be able to prevent the virus individually and collectively from spreading underlined the decision to use CTAs, in addition to their perceived functionality and efficacy.
In relation to that, CTAs became a connector between individual, collective, and state efforts to curb the pandemic. They were a totem that made people feel part of the collective, in which their relationship with others and the state was embedded. In that respect, using CTAs embodied an individual’s desire to tackle the difficult times with their fellow citizens and the state. The deployment of CTAs was perceived to be useful in alerting potential contact with highly affected individuals and in giving the chance to declare health conditions. In addition to the CTAs’ perceived functionality and efficacy, the idealized relationship with others and the state became factors for deciding to use a CTA. One UwD put it: I think this app is pretty good. It reflects the care of the government to the community and society. And I think that the government will use that data responsibly to protect people’s health against the pandemic. This app will help us effectively in controlling the outbreak. Because it helps alert users if they are at risk of coming into contact with a Covid-19 patient and instruct them to contact health authorities. (Nhung)
The notion of “community,” “society,” and “us” exemplified the inclination to use CTAs, together with faith in the state’s accountability. The sense of collectiveness surrounded the intent to take part in controlling the pandemic, which to some extent was related to trust in the efficacy of CTAs in facilitating the effort to protect oneself and others. In that way, using CTAs was a way to express emotional bonds to the community, society, and country to which the UwD belonged. Individual existence was closely related to the continuity of the collectiveness that became the basis for many efforts that UwD deemed effective in returning to the routines of life as it was before the pandemic.
Worth noting from the above excerpt was the twofold notion of surveillance. UwD could voluntarily report themselves to the state if they believed that they were experiencing COVID-19 symptoms. Although there were some people in society who might conceal their status for numerous reasons, self-declaration through a CTA was the least contribution anyone could make to curb the pandemic. Essentially, using CTAs enabled UwD to be socially responsible individuals. In tandem, CTAs allowed for reporting others who UwD believed had contracted the virus. This form of surveillance indicated UwD’s inclination to be involved in the pandemic responses despite the absence of a clear mechanism to verify or rectify false reports.
Discussion
The findings suggest that, besides their perceived efficacy, the reasons for UwD in Vietnam and Indonesia to use CTAs were their faith in the state and the desire to support a collective goal to tackle the pandemic. These reasons reflect their love for the country and participation in the attempt to handle difficult times together; thus manifesting the notion of nationalism that is rooted in the colonial era and has been historically embedded in efforts to protect the country (Kingston, 2017). In this sense, the deployment of CTAs as a health surveillance tool is seen as the state’s intent to take responsibility for saving the people and the nation. UwD, who often face barriers to public participation, viewed using CTAs as a way of both protecting themselves and the community and contributing to the state’s pandemic responses.
The UwD’s tendency to base their CTA use on such nationalistic values implies the intent to dispel their lack of contribution to other nation-building activities. Many non-disabled actors advocate for disability rights without meaningfully understanding the needs, wants, and desires of UwD (Slorach, 2019). Thus, disability narratives are often buried within non-disabled narratives, as the view that disability is complementary and pitiful and meeting the criteria pre-defined by non-disabled people is central (Campbell, 2009). Using CTAs, at least in the context of this study, gives UwD an imaginary space to directly partake in a collective effort for saving the nation without necessarily overemphasizing their disabilities. To some extent, using CTAs grows a sense of autonomy, where UwD can exercise their agency to alter an undesirable situation like a pandemic in their own capacity while simultaneously expressing their contribution to the state.
Nationalistic values therefore hold the potential to become ingredients for promoting the usefulness of CTAs for mitigating the risks of future pandemics in the region. As noted earlier, the deployment of CTAs as one of the pandemic responses is surrounded by polarized discussions pertaining to safety, privacy, and equity (Pagliari, 2020). While any of these discussions has its own merit and socio-technical, economic, and political ramifications, the fact that policy makers in the region were under pressure to handle the pandemic at its peak is undeniable. Some countries have experience and clear pandemic response plans whereas others are lacking. Mobilizing support for pandemic responses through sowing a sense of collectiveness, which is greatly embedded in the existing social and cultural norms of many Asian countries (Wang & Goh, 2017), may be able to accelerate the national efforts to defeat the pandemic. Put differently, incorporating the existing public predispositions and local values in the public health messaging strategy can help mitigate hesitance to use CTAs.
The nationalistic values of UwD are linked to the broader colonial experience that the state reanimated to gain public support for the pandemic responses, including the deployment of CTAs. The nationalism resembled the support for the state to overcome colonial occupation, where only through unity and solidarity based on a shared aspiration to live freely could the colonizers be defeated (Reid, 2010). During the pandemic, that spirit resurfaced as the state called for everyone to “join hands” in viewing the pandemic responses. Friction was undesirable because it is portrayed as corroding national unity; whereas compliance will strengthen solidarity to defeat the pandemic together. The state, together with its technological solutions, in that respect depicted itself as a savior, an accountable body that will bring order back.
Specifically, Vietnam has been known for having tighter control than Indonesia over mass media and digital and social media platforms (Freedom House, 2020). Thus, to a greater extent such communication channels have become an extension of the state’s hand to bolster nationalism during the pandemic. Narratives countering the state’s messaging are limited. Messages aimed at mobilizing support for the state, its struggle and achievement in containing the virus, and the need to work together in difficult times are dominant. In this specific context, nationalism, rather than being seen as toxic, was framed as an impetus to collectively fight against the pandemic (Tamir, 2019). Given the pandemic situation, that form of nationalism can make the execution of state responses to the pandemic more efficient, as evidenced in the deployment of CTAs.
Given their disabilities, which are often portrayed as burdensome and cultural defectors (ESCAP, 2019), and a continuous nationalistic messaging that the state conveys over time, UwD have the belief that using CTAs will manifest loyalty to the state’s agenda to save the country from the pandemic. While discontent and grievance about the state’s inconsistent protection of disability rights persist, when faced with difficult times, supporting the state is believed to be the right thing to do. As the idea of being loyal to the country has been deeply ingrained within a section of society, being critical and demanding rights can be perceived as ungrateful (Smith, 1998).
While all UwD participating in this study expressed their willingness to use CTAs, it is worth mentioning that their limited personal data protection literacy skills could be a reason for their strong faith in the state’s accountability in data handling. As such, questions pertaining to the future use of collected personal data, who can access it, and in what situations are scant. Although personal data protection regulations exist and movements advocating for them are growing in the two countries, a specific focus on UwD has been modest. With that, UwD do not only perpetually fight for equal access but also are the least recipient of programs intended for improving their capability to manage their personal data on the platforms already accessible to them. Hence, while CTA use may represent a commitment to joining the collective fight against the pandemic, it also potentially magnifies the divide between those who have meaningful resources, knowledge, and skills for protecting their own personal data during a critical time and those who do not. UwD, and other historically marginalized users, have been obscured in the conversation about personal data protection, as much as they have been in the pandemic preparedness, response, and recovery plans.
Furthermore, many countries in the Global South have politically and socially enforced CTAs to become tools for reporting COVID-19 vaccination status but regulations and enforcements concerning personal data protection breaches are far from consistent. Hence, the deployment of CTAs will likely sustain the unreconciled debate between security and equity, surveillance and safety, and personal freedom and common good. The pandemic, given its high volatility and transmissibility, has magnified the contest between efforts to save lives and respect human dignity. A mandatory declaration of vaccination status may alienate the unvaccinated, a group that is not limited to anti-vaxxers but rather includes those who are immunocompromised, have limited access to vaccines, and possess limited quality information about vaccines (Yong, 2021). In that sense, the deployment of CTAs will potentially stimulate the emergence of new social pariahs, as the obsession with techno-governance continues and is precipitated by international development actors’ technological deterministic solutions for social problems in low- to middle-income countries.
Although CTA accessibility is not the focus of this study, developers of similar apps need to be aware that Screen Reader/TalkBack users may find difficulties in scanning QR codes, reading maps, and checking health declaration dates. That UwD were willing to use CTAs despite such difficulties indicates their intent to partake in the collective effort to fight against the pandemic at the time of data collection. CTAs’ limited accessibility thus continues to magnify the inconsistent integration of disability rights in the deployment of digital and mobile media to pandemic and disruptive event responses.
Conclusion
This study has demonstrated the nuance surrounding the use of CTAs among UwD in the Global South. Through cases from Indonesia and Vietnam, nationalistic values became a reason for the use as reflected in the UwD’s faith in the state and inclination to support the collective objective to control the pandemic. UwD perceive that the state will be accountable in managing personal and mobility data that a CTA collects, while using it is believed to represent a sense of capability to participate in the existing efforts to control the pandemic. Given that, a continuous collection of mobility data during the pandemic is seen as necessary, whereas its potential abuse and misuse after the pandemic is not in the purview. The findings broadly imply that, in the context of UwD living in an environment where a sense of nationalism is ingrained in the history and is perpetually used for nation building, using CTAs offers an opportunity to support the country during difficult times although that means giving up their personal and mobility data.
This study however narrowly considers market incentives arising from the institutionalization of CTAs, primarily as vaccination programs roll out. A mandatory declaration of vaccination status prior to entering public places can boost CTA use as social and institutional constraints are imposed on non-users, who often are not monolithic. Some people may refuse to use CTAs because of lingering privacy concerns, of being unable to afford mobile Internet, of not owning a smartphone, and of having limited skills to access CTAs. Broadly, there is a section of society which has been historically and economically disadvantaged by the one-size-fits-all approach to the deployment of digital and mobile communication technologies for addressing a pressing health and social problem like a pandemic. While using CTAs can signify a nationalistic feeling during the pandemic, this study offers limited attention to how that feeling fluctuates in diverse segments of society as the pandemic enters different stages.
Thus, discovering other reasons surrounding the use of CTAs across different stages of the pandemic is suggested for further studies. In the early stages of a pandemic, using CTAs might be perceived as useful for contact tracing. As the pandemic becomes more complicated and vaccination programs are implemented sporadically and slowly in low- to middle-income countries, in combination with the state’s inconsistent pandemic responses, the perceived usefulness of CTAs may plummet. Then, when CTAs are institutionalized to become tools for declaring health and vaccination status, the perceived usefulness may pivot. In such different situations, whether it is the notion of nationalism that underlies changes in CTA use is worth exploring.
Footnotes
Acknowledgements
We would like to thank the reviewers for their help in strengthening the quality of this article and Kimberly Wade for her language assistance.
Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article: This research was funded by the Social Science Research Council’s Just Tech Covid-19 Rapid Response Grants, with funds provided by the Ford Foundation and the MacArthur Foundation.
Author biographies
Abdul Rohman has led research projects related to social change, information behavior, and the socio-technical impact of digital and social media platforms in Southeast Asia.
Dyah Pitaloka’s research focuses on global health communication, inequities in health and marginalization in the contexts of Singapore, Indonesia, Vietnam, and Australia.