Policy idea: Incentivizing COVID-19 tracking app use with lottery tickets
tl;dr: Not enough people use COVID-19 tracking apps. Give the app users lottery tickets to incentivize their use. Might be a cost-effective way of fighting the pandemic.
“But even as cases in the country [Singapore] - which is in lockdown—have surged past 9,000, only about one in five people have downloaded the app, TraceTogether, which uses Bluetooth signals to log when people have been close to one another.”
“The Bluetooth approach, being pursued at various stages by governments across Europe and Latin America, as well as in Australia and many Asia nations, requires a majority of people in a geographic area to adopt it for it to be effective.” From: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-apps/bluetooth-phone-apps-for-tracking-covid-19-show-modest-early-results-idUSKCN2232A0
The utilization of these apps could increase significantly with reasonable costs and without making them mandatory if their users automatically participated in a national lottery. 70% of UK adults play the lottery regularly and 50% do so every month. A free lottery ticket + fighting COVID-19 might incentivize a significant portion to use the app.
For example, say the UK distributes £10 million each week via the lottery. The cost per month would be £40 million + running costs, and the yearly costs would be about £500 million + running costs or £7.6 per person (plus running costs). Smaller prizes might also incentivize enough people to use the app making the costs significantly smaller (e.g. £1 million in prizes every week would cost £52 million a year + other costs). If successful, this approach could be continued until we get a vaccine.
“Our estimates are that for every one or two people who install the app, one onward infection is averted and if just over half the population downloads the app then the epidemic can be suppressed entirely.” From: https://www.itv.com/news/2020-04-18/could-an-app-be-the-way-to-take-the-uk-of-out-of-coronavirus-lockdown/
“The think tank estimates that a three-month lockdown followed by three months of looser restrictions will cost £127bn in direct bailout costs and £119bn in indirect costs such as lower tax revenue.” From: https://www.localgov.co.uk/Coronavirus-could-cost-Government-246bn-this-year-think-tank-warns/50355
What do you think? Do you think campaigning alone would get enough people to use these apps?
Pros:
A cost-effective way of fighting COVID-19 (?)
Could enable us to end the lockdown without getting a second wave of infections thus saving the economy and lives
Not necessary to make the app use mandatory
Cons:
Seems a bit tasteless “Win money and save lives”
People might feel they’re selling their privacy for a lottery ticket
Some governments might continue doing this even after the pandemic
Enough people might start using the tracking app without any extra incentives or there might be cheaper ways of promoting the app use
People might download the app but not use it correctly
Unfair for those who don’t own a smartphone (though the policy would also benefit them)
Implementation issues?
Legal issues?
How about having many locations that are open only to people who are running a tracking app?
I’m imagining that places such as restaurants, gyms, and airplanes could require that people use tracking apps in order to enter. Maybe the law should require that as a default for many locations, with the owners able to opt out if they post a conspicuous warning?
How hard would this be to enforce?
I have some ethics alarm bells ringing about this, but a more basic question first: If you discovered that your idea was right and governments should be implementing it, what would you do? What action should people take based on this idea?
Do you know what makes those ethics alarm bells ring? I also have some reservations about this. People allowing governments to track them in exchange for lottery tickets sounds pretty dystopian and an idea that we might want to avoid spreading. Also, I think one reason why I feel a bit uncomfortable about this idea is that it seems to involve entertainment—which is tasteless in this horrible tragedy that’s happening. But then, if it works and saves lives it might be worth it.
If I discovered that this idea was right and should be implemented, probably the best way to advance it would be to share it widely; writing to newspapers and people with large followings, lobbying politicians, sharing on social media etc. (Assuming that there isn’t some other better idea that I could promote instead.) It would be interesting to see a trial of this in some country, for example Singapore (because they already have the app but not enough people are using it) or the UK (they’re making the app and they already have a national lottery that’s popular).
What other ways of incentivizing people to use these apps might work? At first I thought about paying people, but that would be expensive. Lottery is cheaper. For example, if the UK government used 52 million per year on this, its cost would be 80 pence per person (+running costs). But few people would be incentivized to use the app for a year with that little money if they received it directly.
But before implementing this, the governments might want to wait and see how many people start using the app voluntarily. Only if that doesn’t work, they could start incentivizing with the lotteries. Then that policy would be easier to justify to people and the government might save money if they don’t have to use the lotteries at all.
I think you’ve identified the biggest alarm bell: “People might feel they’re selling their privacy for a lottery ticket”
Regardless of whether or not people felt like they were selling their personal data, they would be. Government probably needs to think very carefully about buying health and geolocation data from its citizens; it’s a weird dynamic.
It could be done in a privacy preserving way so people wouldn’t be selling their personal data:
““We collect no location data, no movement profiles, no contact information and no identifiable features of the end devices.”
The newspaper reports PEPP-PT’s approach means apps aligning to this standard would generate only temporary IDs — to avoid individuals being identified. Two or more smartphones running an app that uses the tech and has Bluetooth enabled when they come into proximity would exchange their respective IDs — saving them locally on the device in an encrypted form, according to the report.
Der Spiegel writes that should a user of the app subsequently be diagnosed with coronavirus their doctor would be able to ask them to transfer the contact list to a central server. The doctor would then be able to use the system to warn affected IDs they have had contact with a person who has since been diagnosed with the virus — meaning those at risk individuals could be proactively tested and/or self-isolate.”
From: https://techcrunch.com/2020/04/01/an-eu-coalition-of-techies-is-backing-a-privacy-preserving-standard-for-covid-19-contacts-tracing/