# A Multidimensional Analysis of Released COVID-19 Location-Based Mobile Applications
## 1 Introduction  
The coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic has triggered a series of issues on citizens' activities and has promoted social distancing on most of our activities. As previous pandemics and natural disasters have been faced by governments with the assistance of digital technology, the new coronavirus has challenged again our response efficacy. Location-based mobile applications (LBMAs) related to COVID-19 have been launched providing functionalities that can assist in limiting COVID-19 spread. These include home monitoring surveillance, social monitoring, and contact tracing of apps' users. The pandemic of COVID-19 required rapid and effective action, leading to increased use by governments and/or private companies of mobile applications installed on smartphones to fight the spread of the virus. These measures and mobile apps adopted by public and private authorities during the health crisis uphold the protection of individuals with regard to the processing of personal data. Privacy rights and data protection have a pivotal role in building and maintaining trust in mobile solutions, ensuring that the use of such mobile applications takes into full consideration of human dignity and integrity. As COVID-19 tracing is a highly sensitive area of research, a wide range of publications address potential problems in terms of technology, security, privacy, and governance of their development and use. Although most countries developed apps to aid proximity and contact tracing, some other countries invested efforts in apps aimed at fulfilling other purposes, such as dissemination of information to citizens (news, general instructions to avoid infections, geographical maps), medical support (self-diagnosis, reporting, information to access to health services), mandatory and non-mandatory applications related to quarantineenforcement, forms for movement during lockdowns, map travel patterns, contact and proximity tracing, and monitoring rule violations. A report entitled \"Digital solutions to fight COVID-19\" was published in October 2020 by the Data Protection Unit of the Council of Europe listing the digital solutions (including mobile apps) adopted or planned in the context of the COVID-19 in 55 countries from Africa, Europe, and Latin America (Parties to Convention 108) in order to give insights on the legal and technical measures adopted and their impact on the rights to privacy and data protection. The report identifies a number of shortcomings in some of the legal and technical measures adopted and calls on governments to ensure the transparency of digital solutions, in order to ensure greater respect for privacy and data protection rights. It also notes that despite numerous calls for coordination and interoperability of digital solutions to control the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, countries have implemented individual applications, thus limiting the efficiency and comparability of the measures taken [1]. Specifically, the research of [PERSON] et al. (2020) ensures that privacy is a central feature of conversations surrounding mobile contact tracing apps and encourages community efforts to develop alternative effective solutions with stronger privacy protection for the users [2]. [PERSON] et al. (2020) found that mobile applications for contact tracing differ in technology and methods and are concerned about their implications for privacy and human rights. They propose a socio-technical framework to evaluate current approaches and concerns related to the development, deployment, and usage of tracing apps, illustrating its implementation with three applications [3]. Additionally, [PERSON] et al. (2021) investigated the research problem of digital solutions to overcome the pandemic, more closely examining the limited effectiveness and scope of the governmental COVID-19 tracing apps, using the German COVID-19 tracing app (Corona-Warn-App) as an example.