THESIS
2021
1 online resource (ix, 95 pages) : illustrations (chiefly color)
Abstract
Designing effective data tools for crises such as COVID-19, where situations rapidly evolve
and bring uncertainties that complicate policymaking, is crucial to protect citizens’ health and
safety. Therefore, it is important to address the issues as identified by relevant stakeholders,
especially citizens.
One solution is to allow users to also be co-creators of knowledge by providing meaningful
and salient data to data platforms. Through this interactive process, citizens could be
empowered to make decisions to protect themselves and their communities, especially if their
data could help to generate tailored crisis advice. With this in mind, this thesis serves to
answer the question: what are the design and socio-political elements that would affect the
public use and acceptability of...[
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Designing effective data tools for crises such as COVID-19, where situations rapidly evolve
and bring uncertainties that complicate policymaking, is crucial to protect citizens’ health and
safety. Therefore, it is important to address the issues as identified by relevant stakeholders,
especially citizens.
One solution is to allow users to also be co-creators of knowledge by providing meaningful
and salient data to data platforms. Through this interactive process, citizens could be
empowered to make decisions to protect themselves and their communities, especially if their
data could help to generate tailored crisis advice. With this in mind, this thesis serves to
answer the question: what are the design and socio-political elements that would affect the
public use and acceptability of data tools for COVID-19 advice in Hong Kong? The thesis
employs online surveys and phone interviews to understand stakeholders’ behaviours and
perspectives in response to the data governance issues associated with digital tools for
COVID-19 and air pollution.
Findings reveal that Hong Kong citizens are more accepting of data tools with high perceived
accuracy, secure privacy protections, and pleasing designs. Moreover, politics has not
affected Hong Kong citizens’ willingness to use official COVID-19 data tools despite
unprecedentedly low levels of public trust in government, but it may have affected citizens’
willingness to share personal data with the government. Hong Kong citizens are also divided
on how to navigate data governance trade-offs, as some are not willing to share as much data
as they demand from others. Finally, this thesis recommends government collaboration with
citizen groups and research institutions to improve COVID-19 data tools’ citizen engagement
mechanisms for more salient policies and increased public trust in Hong Kong.
Keywords: COVID-19, data governance, knowledge co-creation, citizen engagement
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