{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,23]],"date-time":"2026-01-23T23:33:45Z","timestamp":1769211225699,"version":"3.49.0"},"reference-count":78,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"7","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,26]],"date-time":"2022-07-26T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1658793600000},"content-version":"tdm","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/journals.sagepub.com\/page\/policies\/text-and-data-mining-license"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["New Media &amp; Society"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2024,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:p> In this article, we examine the rise of contact-tracing apps during the first 2\u2009years of the COVID-19 pandemic as a new form of technological solutionism \u2013 a technological or techno-social fix that can be deployed at national scale in response to an urgent, supranational problem. A dystopian view saw the rapid development and proliferation of COVID-19 contact-tracing apps as a vanguard technology for surveillance. Expediently deployed as a technological fix to the pandemic, contact-tracing was seen to threaten to transform a state of emergency into a state of exception, under which accepted or constitutional laws and norms might be suspended. Here, we extend early critiques of the contact-tracing app as a \u2018technofix\u2019 to argue the growing intervention of global technology corporations in digital governance and affairs of national sovereignty throughout the COVID-19 pandemic represents a new frontier of state\u2013industrial surveillance that exploits people\u2019s pre-investment in and dependence on technology corporations. We exemplify this with the \u2018technofix\u2019 of the Google\u2013Apple Exposure Notification (GAEN) framework and critically examine the notion of a decentralised and privacy-preserving Bluetooth-based contact-tracing framework proposed by global technology corporations that may threaten state sovereignty when determining public health responses to current or future crises. <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/14614448221109800","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,27]],"date-time":"2022-07-27T06:16:25Z","timestamp":1658902585000},"page":"4099-4117","update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":20,"title":["Between surveillance and technological solutionism: A critique of privacy-preserving apps for COVID-19 contact-tracing"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"26","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8372-3797","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Monique","family":"Mann","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Deakin University, Australia"}]},{"given":"Peta","family":"Mitchell","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-9892-0208","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Marcus","family":"Foth","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,26]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-14614448221109800","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1145\/3461702.3462563"},{"key":"bibr2-14614448221109800","unstructured":"Abt Associates (2021) Final Report \u2013 Evaluation of the Operation and Effectiveness of COVIDSafe and the National COVIDSafe Datastore (FOI 2326). 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