sustainability Article COVIDTAS COVID-19 Tracing App Scale— An Evaluation Framework Raghu Raman 1,*, Krishnashree Achuthan 2, Ricardo Vinuesa 3,* and Prema Nedungadi 4 1 Amrita CREATE, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri 690525, India 2 Amrita Center for Cybersecurity Systems and Networks, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri 690525, India;
[email protected] 3 KTH Engineering Mechanics, SE-100 44 Stockholm, Sweden 4 Amrita School of Engineering, Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Amritapuri 690525, India;
[email protected] * Correspondence:
[email protected] (R.R.);
[email protected] (R.V.) Abstract: Mobile apps play an important role in COVID-19 tracing and tracking, with different countries taking different approaches. Our study focuses on 17 government owned COVID-19 Contact Tracing Apps (CTAs) and analyze them using a proposed COVIDTAS framework. User satisfaction is not directly related to the COVIDTAS score or the interaction between users and the app developers. To increase adoption of CTAs, government leadership must offer assurance to its citizens that their identify will be concealed and emphasize the benefits of CTAs as it relates to shared public health. While no country has topped the list on all three major factors (COVIDTAS Score, User Reviews, and User Ratings), the CTA from India seems to have above average performance on all three factors. Keywords: COVID-19; coronavirus; contact tracing; governance; privacy Citation: Raman, R.; Achuthan, K.; Vinuesa, R.; Nedungadi, P. 1. Introduction COVIDTAS COVID-19 Tracing App Scale—An Evaluation Framework. The COVID-19 pandemic, through its sheer scale has highlighted and widened the Sustainability 2021, 13, 2912. https:// socioeconomic divides that exist today and made vulnerable populations such as those doi.org/10.3390/su13052912 with chronic illnesses, elderly, minorities, people of lower socioeconomic backgrounds, etc., more susceptible [1].