Beyond Contact-Tracing Apps – How Trust Shapes E-Governance

In fighting the Covid-19 pandemic, South Korea emerged as a role model. The country managed to greatly slow down the epidemic at an early stage without taking authoritarian countermeasures or locking down entire cities. The use of contact-tracing apps that allow users to find out whether they may have interacted with an infected person might have contributed to this success. European governments in France, Germany or Italy started rolling out similar applications, in collaboration with private tech-partners, hoping to imitate the South Korean success story.