{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,3,14]],"date-time":"2026-03-14T19:33:13Z","timestamp":1773516793490,"version":"3.50.1"},"reference-count":59,"publisher":"SAGE Publications","issue":"2","license":[{"start":{"date-parts":[[2022,7,1]],"date-time":"2022-07-01T00:00:00Z","timestamp":1656633600000},"content-version":"unspecified","delay-in-days":0,"URL":"https:\/\/creativecommons.org\/licenses\/by-nc\/4.0\/"}],"content-domain":{"domain":["journals.sagepub.com"],"crossmark-restriction":true},"short-container-title":["Big Data &amp; Society"],"published-print":{"date-parts":[[2022,7]]},"abstract":"<jats:p> As a key constituent of China's approach to fighting COVID-19, Health Code apps (HCAs) not only serve the pandemic control imperatives but also exercise the agency of digital surveillance. As such, HCAs pave a new avenue for ongoing discussions on contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. This article attends to the perceived privacy protection among HCA users via the lens of the contextual integrity theory. Drawing on an online survey of adult HCA users in Wuhan and Hangzhou (N\u2009=\u20091551), we find users\u2019 perceived convenience, attention towards privacy policy, trust in government, and acceptance of government purposes regarding HCA data management are significant contributors to users\u2019 perceived privacy protection in using the apps. By contrast, users\u2019 frequency of mobile privacy protection behaviors has limited influence, and their degrees of perceived protection do not vary by sociodemographic status. These findings shed new light on China's distinctive approach to pandemic control with respect to the state's expansion of big data-driven surveillance capacity. Also, the findings foreground the heuristic value of contextual integrity theory to examine controversial digital surveillance in non-Western contexts. Put tougher, our findings contribute to the thriving scholarly conversations around digital privacy and surveillance in China, as well as contact tracing solutions and privacy amid the global pandemic. <\/jats:p>","DOI":"10.1177\/20539517221135132","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2022,11,1]],"date-time":"2022-11-01T06:53:57Z","timestamp":1667285637000},"update-policy":"https:\/\/doi.org\/10.1177\/sage-journals-update-policy","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":20,"title":["Privacy at risk? Understanding the perceived privacy protection of health  code apps in China"],"prefix":"10.1177","volume":"9","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0002-1059-4354","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Gejun","family":"Huang","sequence":"first","affiliation":[{"name":"Soochow University, Suzhou, China"}]},{"given":"An","family":"Hu","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA"}]},{"given":"Wenhong","family":"Chen","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[{"name":"The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX, USA"}]}],"member":"179","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2022,10,31]]},"reference":[{"key":"bibr1-20539517221135132","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1086\/674424"},{"key":"bibr2-20539517221135132","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1016\/S2589-7500(20)30133-3"},{"key":"bibr3-20539517221135132","unstructured":"Boyles JL, Smith A, Madden M (2012) Privacy and Data Management on Mobile Devices. 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