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Governments around the globe have started to develop and deploy digital contact tracing apps to gain control over the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19). The appropriateness and usefulness of these technologies as a containment measure have since sparked political and academic discussions globally. The present paper contributes to this debate through an exploration of how the national daily newspapers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland reported on the development and adoption of digital contact-tracing apps during early and after stages of the lockdown. These countries were among the first in Europe to develop apps and were critical voices in the debate of decentralized vs. centralized data processing. We conducted thematic analysis on news coverage published between January and May 2020 in high-circulation national daily newspapers from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A total of 148 articles from nine newspaper companies were included in the final analysis. From our analysis emerged six core themes of the development and adoption of digital contact tracing apps: 1) data governance; 2) role of IT giants; 3) scientific rigor; 4) voluntariness; 5) functional efficacy; 6) role of the app. These results shed light on the different facets of discussion regarding digital contact tracing as portrayed in German-speaking media. This study complements emerging survey data on public perceptions of digital contact tracing apps by providing a better understanding of the ideas circulating in the media ecosystem. ; ISSN:1932-6203

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is a public health challenge of unprecedented scale. In the midst of the first wave of the pandemic, governments worldwide introduced digital contact tracing systems as part of a strategy to contain the spread of the virus. In Europe, after intense discussion about privacy-related risks involving policymakers, technology experts, information technology companies, and—albeit to a limited extent—the public at large, technical protocols were created to support the development of privacy-compatible proximity tracing apps. However, as the second wave of SARS-CoV-2 sweeps the continent, digital contact tracing in Europe is evolving in terms of both technological and governance features. To enable policymakers to harness the full potential of digital health tools against SARS-CoV-2, this paper examines the evolution of digital contact tracing in eight European countries. Our study highlights that while privacy and data protection are at the core of contact tracing apps in Europe, countries differ in their technical protocols, and in their capacity to utilize collected data beyond proximity tracing alone. In particular, the most recently released apps tend to offer users more granular information about risk in specific locations, and to collect data about user whereabouts, in order to enhance retrospective contact tracing capacity. These developments signal a shift from a strict interpretation of data minimization and purpose limitation toward a more expansive approach to digital contact tracing in Europe, calling for careful scrutiny and appropriate oversight.

The SARS-CoV-2 pandemic is a public health challenge of unprecedented scale. In the midst of the first wave of the pandemic, governments worldwide introduced digital contact tracing systems as part of a strategy to contain the spread of the virus. In Europe, after intense discussion about privacy-related risks involving policymakers, technology experts, information technology companies, and—albeit to a limited extent—the public at large, technical protocols were created to support the development of privacy-compatible proximity tracing apps. However, as the second wave of SARS-CoV-2 sweeps the continent, digital contact tracing in Europe is evolving in terms of both technological and governance features. To enable policymakers to harness the full potential of digital health tools against SARS-CoV-2, this paper examines the evolution of digital contact tracing in eight European countries. Our study highlights that while privacy and data protection are at the core of contact tracing apps in Europe, countries differ in their technical protocols, and in their capacity to utilize collected data beyond proximity tracing alone. In particular, the most recently released apps tend to offer users more granular information about risk in specific locations, and to collect data about user whereabouts, in order to enhance retrospective contact tracing capacity. These developments signal a shift from a strict interpretation of data minimization and purpose limitation toward a more expansive approach to digital contact tracing in Europe, calling for careful scrutiny and appropriate oversight. ; ISSN:2673-253X

Good biobank governance implies—at a minimum—transparency and accountability and the implementation of oversight mechanisms. While the biobanking community is in general committed to such principles, little is known about precisely which governance strategies biobanks adopt to meet those objectives. We conducted an exploratory analysis of governance mechanisms adopted by research biobanks, including genetic biobanks, located in Europe and Canada. We reviewed information available on the websites of 69 biobanks, and directly contacted them for additional information. Our study identified six types of commonly adopted governance strategies: communication, compliance, expert advice, external review, internal procedures, and partnerships. Each strategy is implemented through different mechanisms including, independent ethics assessment, informed consent processes, quality management, data access control, legal compliance, standard operating procedures and external certification. Such mechanisms rely on a wide range of bodies, committees and actors from both within and outside the biobanks themselves. We found that most biobanks aim to be transparent about their governance mechanisms, but could do more to provide more complete and detailed information about them. In particular, the retrievable information, while showing efforts to ensure biobanks operate in a legitimate way, does not specify in sufficient detail how governance mechanisms support accountability, nor how they ensure oversight of research operations. This state of affairs can potentially undermine biobanks' trustworthiness to stakeholders and the public in a long-term perspective. Given the ever-increasing reliance of biomedical research on large biological repositories and their associated databases, we recommend that biobanks increase their efforts to future-proof their governance. ; ISSN:1476-5438 ; ISSN:1018-4813

Governments around the globe have started to develop and deploy digital contact tracing apps to gain control over the spread of the novel coronavirus (Covid-19). The appropriateness and usefulness of these technologies as a containment measure have since sparked political and academic discussions globally. The present paper contributes to this debate through an exploration of how the national daily newspapers in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland reported on the development and adoption of digital contact-tracing apps during early and after stages of the lockdown. These countries were among the first in Europe to develop apps and were critical voices in the debate of decentralized vs. centralized data processing. We conducted thematic analysis on news coverage published between January and May 2020 in high-circulation national daily newspapers (print) from Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. A total of 148 newspaper articles were included in the final analysis. From our analysis emerged six core themes of the development and adoption of digital contact tracing apps: 1) data governance; 2) role of IT giants; 3) scientific rigor; 4) voluntariness; 5) functional efficacy; 6) role of the app. These results shed light on the different facets of discussion regarding digital contact tracing as portrayed in German-speaking media. As news coverage can serve as a proxy for public perception, this study complements emerging survey data on public perceptions of digital contact tracing apps by identifying potential issues of public concern.

Massive amounts of data are collected and stored on a routine basis in virtually all domains of human activities. Such data are potentially useful to biomedicine. Yet, access to data for research purposes is hindered by the fact that different kinds of individual-patient data reside in disparate, unlinked silos. We propose that data cooperatives can promote much needed data aggregation and consequently accelerate research and its clinical translation. Data cooperatives enable direct control over personal data, as well as more democratic governance of data pools. This model can realize a specific kind of data economy whereby citizens and communities are empowered to steer data use according to their motivations, preferences, and concerns. Policy makers can promote this model by recognizing citizens' rights to access and to obtain a copy of their own data, and by funding distributed data infrastructures piloting new data aggregation models. ; ISSN:2210-5433 ; ISSN:2210-5441

Trust is a ubiquitous term used in emerging technology (e.g., Big Data, precision medicine), innovation policy, and governance literatures in particular. But what exactly is trust? Even though trust is considered a critical requirement for the successful deployment of precision medicine initiatives, nonetheless, there is a need for further conceptualization with regard to what qualifies as trust, and what factors might establish and sustain trust in precision medicine, predictive analytics, and large-scale biology. These new fields of 21st century medicine and health often deal with the "futures" and hence, trust gains a temporal and ever-present quality for both the present and the futures anticipated by new technologies and predictive analytics. We address these conceptual gaps that have important practical implications in the way we govern risk and unknowns associated with emerging technologies in biology, medicine, and health broadly. We provide an in-depth conceptual analysis and an operative definition of trust dynamics in precision medicine. In addition, we identify three main types of "trust facilitators": (1) technical, (2) ethical, and (3) institutional. This three-dimensional framework on trust is necessary to building and maintaining trust in 21st century knowledge-based innovations that governments and publics invest for progressive societal change, development, and sustainable prosperity. Importantly, we analyze, identify, and deliberate on the dimensions of precision medicine and large-scale biology that have carved out trust as a pertinent tool to its success. Moving forward, we propose a "points to consider" on how best to enhance trust in precision medicine and predictive analytics. ; ISSN:1536-2310 ; ISSN:1557-8100

Trust is a ubiquitous term used in emerging technology (e.g., Big Data, precision medicine), innovation policy, and governance literatures in particular. But what exactly is trust? Even though trust is considered a critical requirement for the successful deployment of precision medicine initiatives, nonetheless, there is a need for further conceptualization with regard to what qualifies as trust, and what factors might establish and sustain trust in precision medicine, predictive analytics, and large-scale biology. These new fields of 21st century medicine and health often deal with the "futures" and hence, trust gains a temporal and ever-present quality for both the present and the futures anticipated by new technologies and predictive analytics. We address these conceptual gaps that have important practical implications in the way we govern risk and unknowns associated with emerging technologies in biology, medicine, and health broadly. We provide an in-depth conceptual analysis and an operative definition of trust dynamics in precision medicine. In addition, we identify three main types of "trust facilitators": (1) technical, (2) ethical, and (3) institutional. This three-dimensional framework on trust is necessary to building and maintaining trust in 21st century knowledge-based innovations that governments and publics invest for progressive societal change, development, and sustainable prosperity. Importantly, we analyze, identify, and deliberate on the dimensions of precision medicine and large-scale biology that have carved out trust as a pertinent tool to its success. Moving forward, we propose a "points to consider" on how best to enhance trust in precision medicine and predictive analytics.

BACKGROUND: The Covid-19 pandemic is characterized by uncertainty and constant change, forcing governments and health authorities to ramp up risk communication efforts. Consequently, visuality and social media platforms like Twitter have come to play a vital role in disseminating prevention messages widely. Yet to date, only little is known about what characterizes visual risk communication during the Covid-19 pandemic. To address this gap in the literature, this study's objective was to determine how visual risk communication was used on Twitter to promote the World Health Organisations (WHO) recommended preventative behaviours and how this communication changed over time. METHODS: We sourced Twitter's 500 most retweeted Covid-19 messages for each month from January–October 2020 using Crowdbreaks. For inclusion, tweets had to have visuals, be in English, come from verified accounts, and contain one of the keywords 'covid19', 'coronavirus', 'corona', or 'covid'. Following a retrospective approach, we then performed a qualitative content analysis of the 616 tweets meeting inclusion criteria. RESULTS: Our results show communication dynamics changed over the course of the pandemic. At the start, most retweeted preventative messages came from the media and health and government institutions, but overall, personal accounts with many followers (51.3%) predominated, and their tweets had the highest spread (10.0%, i.e., retweet count divided by followers). Messages used mostly photographs and images were found to be rich with information. 78.1% of Tweets contained 1–2 preventative messages, whereby 'stay home' and 'wear a mask' frequented most. Although more tweets used health loss framing, health gain messages spread more. CONCLUSION: Our findings can inform the didactics of future crisis communication. The results underscore the value of engaging individuals, particularly influencers, as advocates to spread health risk messages and promote solidarity. Further, our findings on the visual characteristic of the most ...