This study is an international comparative survey to understand how tracking applications developed to combat the covid19 pandemic are or are not appropriated by citizens in different countries. This research is being carried out in collaboration with researchers from the universities of Denver (Colorado - USA) and Kyoto (Japan).

The question of the relationship with the pandemic risk is at the heart of this 4th survey, as well as the issues of trust, whether it be with the government or with scientific and medical institutions. We also have some questions about relationship with digital. New features have appeared in the application with the health pass and the Signal function. Many people have downloaded the application since it can store a health certificate (PCR, vaccination, etc.).
Do these new users have the same expectations and uses of the application?
Is the reporting system in public places accepted?
It is the answers that this fourth campaign has sought to collect.

A four-stage survey

For the record, four waves of collections are organised, between November 2020 and the summer of 2021.

•     The first wave (20-30/11/2020), launched in the midst of a pandemic, focused on the management of the application in a pandemic peak situation and severe travel restrictions.  2831 people responded.
•      The second wave (20/12/2020-10/01/2021) included questions on protective measures. It received 2,400 responses.
•      The third wave (20/02-20/03/2021) explored issues of trust in tracking but also in government or society in general. 1526 people responded.

First findings

It is worth noting that all surveys so far have had a 50-50 balance of users and non-users.
This enthusiasm has paved the way for semi-structured interviews on the experience of the pandemic, the relationship with the application and digital practices. At the time of writing, 75 interviews lasting more than an hour have been conducted and 15 are still scheduled.
A "TousAntiCovid logbook" system was also set up to collect day after day (over 7 consecutive days) the uses of regular users of the application: more than 250 days have been collected.

As part of the international cooperation established for this research, a comparative survey of France, Japan and the USA, based on a panel representative of the general population, will be carried out in September 2021 with 5,000 participants.