The acceptability and uptake of smartphone tracking for COVID-19 in Australia

Paul M. Garrett; Joshua P. White; Stephan Lewandowsky; Yoshihisa Kashima; Andrew Perfors; Daniel R. Little; Nic Geard; Lewis Mitchell; Martin Tomko; Simon Dennis

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0244827

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionSeptember 28, 2020
4 Nov 2020 Decision Letter - Valerio Capraro, Editor PONE-D-20-30595 The acceptability and uptake of smartphone tracking for COVID-19 in Australia PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Garrett, Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process. Please find below the reviewers' comments, as well as those of mine. Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 19 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. 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Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Valerio Capraro Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=ba62/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_title_authors_affiliations.pdf Additional Editor Comments (if provided): I have now collected two reviews from two experts in the field. The reviewers like the paper and think that it can be published after a suitable revision. Therefore, I would like to invite you to revise your paper following the reviewers' comments. Moreover, I would like to add one minor comment. I have noticed that the literature review contains several unpublished papers. I think that references to unpublished works should be, if possible, minimised. So, my suggestion is to replace, when possible, unpublished works with published works. A useful starting point could be the "perspective article" on what social and behavioral science can do to support pandemic response (Van Bavel et al. 2020). Looking forward for the revision. References Van Bavel, J. J., et al. (2020). Using social and behavioural science to support COVID-19 pandemic response. Nature Human Behaviour, 1-12. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #1: The authors report the results of several surveys that were carried out to gauge the attitude of the Australian population towards tracking technologies. The paper is scientifically sound, well written, easy to follow and the results are quite interesting. I believe the results have important policy implications, especially the ones regarding the intention-behavior gap. By the way, I found a small spelling mistake: line 491: upp -> app Reviewer #2: The article is timely and deals with a very important issue. However, there are several weak points that I listed below: 1. Studies presented in this paper seem to be descriptive to a large extent. The Introduction is lacking with any hypotheses and the theoretical justification for the usage of three types of scenarios appears insufficient. I suggest authors elaborate more on the mechanism that may stand behind the attitudes towards different tracking technologies, even if they do not have firm hypotheses. There is a recent paper by Wnuk, A., Oleksy, T., & Maison, D. (2020). The acceptance of Covid-19 tracking technologies: The role of perceived threat, lack of control, and ideological beliefs. PloS one, 15(9) that shows that acceptance of tracking technologies is predicted by perceived risk of Covid-19 infection, endorsement of liberty and RWA. It seems to be a relevant background for this paper. 2. The three scenarios that were used differ in many points, not only in the source of tracking apps (government vs telecommunication vs Bluetooth). For example, in the second scenario there is information that “(…)Australian Government who may use the data to locate people who were violating lockdown orders and enforce them with fines and arrests where necessary.” This makes it difficult to say what was the actual reason people thought it would be beneficial, i.e. whether because the app was mandatory or because the government would impose additional restrictions on those who did not follow the rules. This is the main limitation of this study. 3. In the Discussion I would recommend discussing the possible reasons that may cause the results, e.g. why there were no differences between scenarios in terms of acceptance of technologies. ****** 6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #1: No Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.] While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com/. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Registration is free. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244827.r001
Revision 1
6 Dec 2020 Author Response The following is a copy of the attached responses letter. Response to reviewers I begin by thanking the Editor and both Reviewers for their excellent feedback. The comments provided were very constructive and the manuscript was returned in a rapid timeframe. This is a remarkable effort on the part of all parties under normal circumstances, let alone during the current pandemic. Thank you. Below I detail my replies to each issue raised. For clarity of exposition, reviewer or editor comments are displayed in black, replies are in blue, and modified text in the pdf is displayed in red. Manuscript line numbers of each modification are also reported in this reply letter. Again, thank you for your time and feedback on this manuscript. We hope these changes are acceptable to the editor and reviewers, and we look forward to seeing our work published in PloS One. Sincerely, Dr Paul M. Garrett Editor I have now collected two reviews from two experts in the field. The reviewers like the paper and think that it can be published after a suitable revision. Therefore, I would like to invite you to revise your paper following the reviewers' comments. Moreover, I would like to add one minor comment. I have noticed that the literature review contains several unpublished papers. I think that references to unpublished works should be, if possible, minimised. So, my suggestion is to replace, when possible, unpublished works with published works. A useful starting point could be the "perspective article" on what social and behavioral science can do to support pandemic response (Van Bavel et al. 2020). - Thank you for this feedback and the suggested reference; this has been added to the manuscript. - Upon resubmission, all previously cited journal articles have been accepted for publication and our references have been updated accordingly. We have included two additional preprints by co-authors of this paper that are relevant to the current study, Garrett et al., (2020) and Lewandowsky et al., (2020), which use similar methods to determine attitudes to tracking technologies in Taiwan and the United Kingdom, respectively. We denote these as ‘Preprints’ in our reference list. - The authors believe that the necessary changes have been made to align this manuscript with Plos One’s formatting guides. We will of course change anything else upon request. Thank you. Reviewer 1 The authors report the results of several surveys that were carried out to gauge the attitude of the Australian population towards tracking technologies. The paper is scientifically sound, well written, easy to follow and the results are quite interesting. I believe the results have important policy implications, especially the ones regarding the intention-behavior gap. line 491: upp -> app - Done, thank you. Reviewer 2 The article is timely and deals with a very important issue. However, there are several weak points that I listed below: 1. Studies presented in this paper seem to be descriptive to a large extent. The Introduction is lacking with any hypotheses and the theoretical justification for the usage of three types of scenarios appears insufficient. I suggest authors elaborate more on the mechanism that may stand behind the attitudes towards different tracking technologies, even if they do not have firm hypotheses. There is a recent paper by Wnuk, A., Oleksy, T., & Maison, D. (2020). The acceptance of Covid-19 tracking technologies: The role of perceived threat, lack of control, and ideological beliefs. PloS one, 15(9) that shows that acceptance of tracking technologies is predicted by perceived risk of Covid-19 infection, endorsement of liberty and RWA. It seems to be a relevant background for this paper. “I suggest authors elaborate more on the mechanism that may stand behind the attitudes towards different tracking technologies…” - Done, thank you. Following our introduction of the privacy calculus mechanism, we have added further content on the elements that may inform tracking acceptance (lines 28 – 38). “Theoretical justification for the usage of three types of scenarios appears insufficient…” - Done, thank you. Our investigation was informed by three real-world policy options that have been introduced around the world. We now make this real-world motivation clear in the introduction (lines 40 – 47). “The Introduction is lacking with any hypotheses…” - Done, thank you. We chose to not hypothesise about public acceptance, primarily because each scenario differed on multiple dimensions (e.g., voluntary vs mandatory tracking, centralized vs decentralized storage). We still believe it more appropriate to simply report the findings as a descriptive account of public attitudes, and therefore have chosen not to add hypothesises after the results are known (HARKing; see Kerr, 1998; Rubin, 2017). We now make this clear to the reader (lines 97 – 105). 2. The three scenarios that were used differ in many points, not only in the source of tracking apps (government vs telecommunication vs Bluetooth). For example, in the second scenario there is information that “(…)Australian Government who may use the data to locate people who were violating lockdown orders and enforce them with fines and arrests where necessary.” This makes it difficult to say what was the actual reason people thought it would be beneficial, i.e. whether because the app was mandatory or because the government would impose additional restrictions on those who did not follow the rules. This is the main limitation of this study. - Done, thank you. We have included this limitation in our discussion (lines 516 – 523). 3. In the Discussion I would recommend discussing the possible reasons that may cause the results, e.g. why there were no differences between scenarios in terms of acceptance of technologies. - Done, thank you. We have expanded our discussion under the subsection “Hypothetical tracking scenarios” to this effect (lines 452 – 459). References Garrett, P., Wang, Y. W., White, J. P., Hsieh, S., Strong, C., Lee, Y. C., ... & Dennis, S. (2020). Young adults view smartphone tracking technologies for COVID-19 as acceptable: the case of Taiwan. (https://psyarxiv.com/mznrb) [Preprint; under review at Psychology, Public Policy and Law] Kerr, N. L. (1998). HARKing: Hypothesizing after the results are known. Personality and social psychology review, 2(3), 196-217. Lewandowsky, S., Dennis, S., Perfors, A., Kashima, Y., White, J. P., Garrett, P., ... & Yesilada, M. (2020). Public acceptance of privacy-encroaching policies to address the covid-19 pandemic in the united kingdom. (https://psyarxiv.com/njwmp) [Preprint; revised & resubmitted to Plos One] Rubin, M. (2017). When does HARKing hurt? Identifying when different types of undisclosed post hoc hypothesizing harm scientific progress. Review of General Psychology, 21(4), 308-320. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244827.r002
17 Dec 2020 Decision Letter - Valerio Capraro, Editor The acceptability and uptake of smartphone tracking for COVID-19 in Australia PONE-D-20-30595R1 Dear Dr. Garrett, We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements. Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Valerio Capraro Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: Reviewer's Responses to Questions Comments to the Author 1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation. Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed ******** 2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions? The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available? The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English? PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here. Reviewer #2: Yes ****** 6. Review Comments to the Author Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters) Reviewer #2: Thank you for your edits and clarifications. I find the manuscript improved. Good luck with the publication! ****** 7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files. If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public. Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review?** For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy. Reviewer #2: No https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244827.r003
Formally Accepted
21 Dec 2020 Acceptance Letter - Valerio Capraro, Editor PONE-D-20-30595R1 The acceptability and uptake of smartphone tracking for COVID-19 in Australia Dear Dr. Garrett: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Valerio Capraro Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0244827.r004

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