Public perception of digital contact tracing app and implications for technology acceptance and use models

Governments are increasingly adopting digital contact tracing applications (DCT) as a key component of their response to the COVID-19 pandemic. However, governments are struggling to achieve widespread adoption of DCT necessary for obtaining the expected individual and public benefits associated with its use. Consequently, studies on DCT have focused on the barriers to DCT adoption in different contexts and possible ways of overcoming some of the public concerns regarding the technology. Given the global nature of this innovation, this study explores extant literature and the public perception of DCT expressed in public tweets from different regions of the world. Our findings reveal emergent factors associated with the diffusion and adoption of the technology and enable us to better account for the ambivalent nature of DCT and its public-health innovation context in technology adoption models such as UTAUT.