No full-text available
To read the full-text of this research,
you can request a copy directly from the authors.
QR codes during the pandemic: Seamful quotidian placemaking
Abstract
During the COVID-19 pandemic, one technology for contact tracing has come to dominate – QR codes. As a technology pioneered in Japan two decades ago and mainstreamed in China, QR codes have quickly become part of quotidian placemaking. While locations such as China have fully incorporated QR code technology into everyday contexts including public transport and mobile wallet applications, QR codes in the West were relatively overlooked. That was, until the pandemic. In this article, we examine some of the ways QR codes are being imagined and reimagined as part of public placemaking practices. In order to do so, we begin with a short history of QR codes – emerging in Japan, becoming mainstream in China and their consequent uptake globally. We then discuss the methods of our Australian study conducted during the pandemic and the seamful/seamless findings from our study.
In Australia, checking in while entering venues was a legal requirement during the COVID-19 pandemic to track potential infection sites. This two-wave correlational study used an integrated theory of planned behavior model including moral norms, anticipated regret, and habit to predict check-in compliance in a sample of 181 Victorians (Mean Age = 41.88, 56.4% female) and 162 Queenslanders (Mean Age = 43.26, 47.5% female). Habit and intention predicted behavior, while perceived behavioral control did not. Intention was predicted by baseline habit, attitude, subjective norm, and moral norm in the Victorian sample, while only baseline habit and moral norm predicted intention in the Queensland sample. This study has potential implications for reviewing previous strategies and for future pandemic preparedness, both by identifying the drivers of infection control compliance, and through the discussion of how differences in effects between states may be linked to each state’s experience of the pandemic (e.g. infection rates, lockdown length).
In the early months of 2020, the deadly Covid-19 disease spread rapidly around the world. In response, national and regional governments implemented a range of emergency lockdown measures, curtailing citizens’ movements and greatly limiting economic activity. More recently, as restrictions begin to be loosened or lifted entirely, the use of so-called contact tracing apps has figured prominently in many jurisdictions’ plans to reopen society. Critics have questioned the utility of such technologies on a number of fronts, both practical and ethical. However, little has been said about the ways in which the normative design choices of app developers, and the products that result therefrom, might contribute to ethical reflection and wider political debate. Drawing from scholarship in critical design and human–computer interaction, this paper examines the development of a QR code-based tracking app called Zwaai (‘Wave’ in Dutch), where its designers explicitly positioned the app as an alternative to the predominant Bluetooth and GPS-based approaches. Through analyzing these designers’ choices, this paper argues that QR code infrastructures can work to surface a set of ethical–political seams , two of which are discussed here— responsibilization and networked (im)permanence —that more ‘seamless’ protocols like Bluetooth actively aim to bypass, and which may go otherwise unnoticed by existing ethical frameworks.
Background: Timely and effective contact tracing is an essential public health measure for curbing the transmission of COVID-19. App-based contact tracing has the potential to optimize the resources of overstretched public health departments. However, its efficiency is dependent on widespread adoption.
Objective: This study aimed to investigate the uptake of the Australian Government’s COVIDSafe app among Australians and examine the reasons why some Australians have not downloaded the app.
Methods: An online national survey, with representative quotas for age and gender, was conducted between May 8 and May 11, 2020. Participants were excluded if they were a health care professional or had been tested for COVID-19.
Results: Of the 1802 potential participants contacted, 289 (16.0%) were excluded prior to completing the survey, 13 (0.7%) declined, and 1500 (83.2%) participated in the survey. Of the 1500 survey participants, 37.3% (n=560) had downloaded the COVIDSafe app, 18.7% (n=280) intended to do so, 27.7% (n=416) refused to do so, and 16.3% (n=244) were undecided. Equally proportioned reasons for not downloading the app included privacy (165/660, 25.0%) and technical concerns (159/660, 24.1%). Other reasons included the belief that social distancing was sufficient and the app was unnecessary (111/660, 16.8%), distrust in the government (73/660, 11.1%), and other miscellaneous responses (eg, apathy and following the decisions of others) (73/660, 11.1%). In addition, knowledge about COVIDSafe varied among participants, as some were confused about its purpose and capabilities.
Conclusions: For the COVIDSafe app to be accepted by the public and used correctly, public health messages need to address the concerns of citizens, specifically privacy, data storage, and technical capabilities. Understanding the specific barriers preventing the uptake of contact tracing apps provides the opportunity to design targeted communication strategies aimed at strengthening public health initiatives, such as downloading and correctly using contact tracing apps.
In the heady discourse following the launch of Pokémon Go, many of the game's influences, histories and precursors were forgotten or overlooked. Against the newness in which Pokémon Go is often framed, this article re-contextualises its history examining comparable practices and recalling the games evolution from earlier locative applications developed by Google to the experimental games of the modernist Avant Garde to which it has been compared. Central to this paper is discussion of the opportunities in the pervasive game development process for encoding and recoding the city by balancing in-game content with the nuances of the urban landscape in which it is played. While Pokémon Go has been revelatory in bringing awareness of pervasive gaming into the mainstream, this discussion of location-based games, public art projects, and playful approaches to urban exploration aims to fill gaps in the history of the field, and offer new possibilities for future game design and analysis.
Protect privacy, equality and fairness in digital contact tracing with these key questions. Protect privacy, equality and fairness in digital contact tracing with these key questions.
Background:
To review published literature on the use of quick response (QR) codes within healthcare education. In addition, the authors aimed to gain information on user perceptions and the challenges faced when implementing QR codes in an educational context.
Methods:
Medline, EMBASE, CINAHL (Cumulative Index to Nursing and Allied Health Literature), HMIC (Healthcare Management Information Consortium) and HBE (Health Business Elite) were searched using specified search terms that included 'quick response code' and 'education'. Title and abstract review of 217 publications was performed. Papers which discussed the application of QR codes relevant to healthcare education were included. A total of 24 articles were reviewed and thematic analysis conducted to generate themes.
Results:
Use of QR codes in healthcare education were broadly aligned to four common themes. These included: to increase participant engagement, for simulation training, for just-in-time (JIT) learning and to facilitate with administrative tasks in training. Perceptions towards the use of QR codes was generally positive. Challenges identified, included: problems with technical infrastructure, unavailability of smartphones and resistance to use in certain environments.
Conclusions:
The use of QR codes for healthcare education is increasing, and whilst they offer some advantages there are also some important considerations including: provision of the necessary technological infrastructure, patient and staff safety and governance and adherence to guidelines on safe and appropriate use of this technology in sensitive settings.
Neighborhood placemaking is a growing opportunity for game design. Neighborhood cohesion has been linked to economic renewal, increased life expectancy, and greater civic engagement. However, for game design to be a powerful tool for urban communities, clearer ties to the tools and social practices of placemaking are necessary. This paper investigates how games can facilitate participation in creative placemaking, emphasizing the group storytelling of place. A case study of one game (Sankofa Says) is analyzed. Rather than analyze the impact on individuals, this study traces how it structures participation in communication practices. Playing the game involves circulating and performing the neighborhood stories of specific city. Several design principles emerge that align with spreadable media and findings from Communication Infrastructure Theory (CIT). The results emphasize a shift away from placemaking with a single application (e.g., mobile games), and instead weaving together multiple communication platforms to facilitate circulation and spread.
This special commentary for Mobile Media & Communication seeks to put these divisive debates in context. Through the lens of Pokémon GO, we can understand and critically interpret a variety of issues involved in the politics and practice of playful mobile media. These issues move across debates around location-aware technologies in constructions of privacy (Coldewey, 2016; Cunningham, 2016), risk and surveillance (Machkovech, 2016; Mishra, 2016) to the role of mobile media in commodifying (Evangelho, 2016) and expanding the social, cultural, and creative dimensions of play (Isbister, 2016; Mäyrä, 2012). As the mobile media and game theorists in this commentary highlight, the game sits at the nexus of several technological and cultural trajectories: the playful turn; the ubiquity of location-based and haptic mobile media (and apps and games); innovative game design; the effects of digital mapping technologies; the intertwining of performative media games and art; our individual and collective memories of playworlds and transmedia universes; the increasing importance of issues concerning privacy and risk in public spaces; the ongoing augmentation of place and space; and the politics embedded in this hybrid experience of the lifeworld.
People create profiles on social network sites and Twitter accounts against the background of an audience. This paper argues that closely examining content created by others and looking at one's own content through other people's eyes, a common part of social media use, should be framed as social surveillance. While social surveillance is distinguished from traditional surveillance along three axes (power, hierarchy, and reciprocity), its effects and behavior modification is common to traditional surveillance. Drawing on ethnographic studies of United States populations, I look at social surveillance, how it is practiced, and its impact on people who engage in it. I use Foucault's concept of capillaries of power to demonstrate that social surveillance assumes the power differentials evident in everyday interactions rather than the hierarchical power relationships assumed in much of the surveillance literature. Social media involves a collapse of social contexts and social roles, complicating boundary work but facilitating social surveillance. Individuals strategically reveal, disclose and conceal personal information to create connections with others and tend social boundaries. These processes are normal parts of day-to-day life in communities that are highly connected through social media.
This paper shows the Zsohár Horticulture Company in Nagyrákos, how they want to change their barcode identification system to QR code. They cultivate herbaceous, perpetual decorational plants, rock-garden, flower-bed and swamp perpetuals, decorational grasses and spices. A part of the perpetuals are evergreens, but most of them has special organs - such as onions, thick-, bulbous roots, "winter-proof" buds - so they can survive winter. In the first part of the paper I introduce the different barcode standards, how can it be printed and how can it be read. In the second part of the paper I give details about the quick response code (QR code) and the two-dimensional (2D) barcode. Third part of this paper illustrates the QR code usability in agriculture focused on the gardening.
Smartphones are becoming more preferred companions to users than desktops or notebooks. Knowing that smartphones are most popular with users at the age around 26, using smartphones to speed up the process of taking attendance by university instructors would save lecturing time and hence enhance the educational process. This paper proposes a system that is based on a QR code, which is being displayed for students during or at the beginning of each lecture. The students will need to scan the code in order to confirm their attendance. The paper explains the high level implementation details of the proposed system. It also discusses how the system verifies student identity to eliminate false registrations.
Libraries and museums are increasingly looking to mobile technologies, including quick response (QR) codes, to better serve their visitors and achieve their overall institutional goals; however, there is a lack of information regarding patrons' perceptions of QR codes — information essential to successful implementations. This case study explored staff members' and patrons' perceptions of QR codes at Ryerson University Library and the Museum of Inuit Art in order to determine the extent to which QR codes are appropriate for use in libraries and museums. Observations and 56 patron and staff interviews were conducted to obtain data on usage, knowledge, reactions and expectations regarding QR codes in these institutions. It was found that QR code usage was low, but that there was potential for use, with patrons' reactions being generally positive. Three themes were identified from an analysis of the results: an assumption that young people and smartphone owners use QR codes; that QR codes are only used for one-way provision of information, not to initiate a conversation; and that QR codes can be used to personalize a visit to an institution. Libraries and museums are advised that based on these findings, QR codes can provide a cost effective and potentially powerful tool, but patrons should be first surveyed to tailor these initiatives to their wants and needs.
This brief essay introduces the special issue on the topic of ‘digital placemaking’ – a concept describing the use of digital media to create a sense of place for oneself and/or others. As a broad framework that encompasses a variety of practices used to create emotional attachments to place through digital media use, digital placemaking can be examined across a variety of domains. The concept acknowledges that, at its core, a drive to create and control a sense of place is understood as primary to how social actors identify with each other and express their identities and how communities organize to build more meaningful and connected spaces. This idea runs through the articles in the issue, exploring the many ways people use digital media, under varied conditions, to negotiate differential mobilities and become placemakers – practices that may expose or amplify preexisting inequities, exclusions, or erasures in the ways that certain populations experience digital media in place and placemaking.
In this article we explore preliminary findings from the study COVIDSafe and Beyond: Perceptions and Practices conducted in Australia in 2020. The study involved a survey followed by interviews, and aimed to capture the dynamic ways in which members of the Australian public perceive the impact of Covid practices – especially public health measures like the introduction of physical and social distancing, compulsory mask wearing, and contact tracing. In the rescripting of public space, different notions of formal and informal surveillance, along with different textures of mediated and social care, appeared. In this article, we explore perceptions around divergent forms of surveillance across social, technological, governmental modes, and the relationship of surveillance to care in our media and cultural practices. What does it mean to care for self and others during a pandemic? How does care get enacted in, and through, media interfaces and public interaction?
Places are filled with stories, with histories that shape how people understand the nature of a place. Places are unique sets of trajectories – each with a story – coming into contact. However, just as much as places are defined by their histories, they are also shaped by the histories that are forgotten, or far too often, actively suppressed through dominant narratives. After all, dominant media of spatial, public memory – for example, plaques and public monuments – often reproduce dominant narratives of a place, narratives created by the powerful. This project examines how digital placemaking can be deployed through locative technologies to push back on dominant spatial narratives and make places more polyvocal in consequential ways. In particular, through a project at Clemson University, we examine how locative storytelling applications can help students intervene in traditional narratives of place to engage with social justice and alternative histories.
All games contain conflict, and all good games have uncertain outcomes. Whether conflict over resources, knowledge, or territory, to name a few types, games challenge players to overcome obstacles in interesting and fun ways. Pokémon Go challenges players to find and capture Pokémon, which requires time, patience, skill, and the freedom to access the game map (i.e., spaces in the real world) to its fullest extent. When players are denied full access, either through a technical glitch in the game—like when a server crashes or when networks become unavailable—or through real or imagined threats of violence or harassment, the game becomes inherently unfair. How might we make sense of issues of accessibility, privilege, and race raised by the game? When players say “I might die if I keep playing” (Akil, 2016), what might we learn about the limits of mobility and the ways in which pervasive play comes to be embedded in society?
This article presents the design and development of a game called "The buildings speak about our city" that combines location-based and marker-based augmented reality. The aim of the game is to motivate primary school students to discover the buildings of tobacco warehouses of a city in western Greece, which have historical, architectural and cultural value, and explore their relationship with the economic, cultural development of the city. To achieve this, specific groups of students undertake three roles: the historian, the architect and the journalist. The game was designed in accordance with principles of the theory of situated learning and the theory of constructivism. The scenario of the game was evaluated by a group of five teachers and 21 students of primary education.
Today, more mediated information is available to more people than at any other time in human history. New and revitalized sense-making strategies multiply in response to the challenges of “cutting through the clutter” of competing narratives and taming the avalanche of information. Data miners, “sentiment analysts,” and decision markets offer to help bodies of data “speak for themselves”-making sense of their own patterns so we don’t have to. Neuromarketers and body language experts promise to peer behind people’s words to see what their brains are really thinking and feeling. New forms of information processing promise to displace the need for expertise and even comprehension-at least for those with access to the data.
Specialized elements of hardware and software, connected by wires, radio waves and infrared, will be so ubiquitous that no one will notice their presence.
The evolution of modern communication technologies and widespread use of mobile phones enable their common use in numerous everyday applications. This paper describes the implementation of a system, which enables the use of phones for acquiring electronic public transport ticket. QR codes and RFID tags are used for registering passenger at the beginning and at the end of their journeys. The development of mobile applications was done by using two modern technologies, mobile operating system Android and Near Field Communication (NFC). A passenger can see the amounts charged for a ticket and other information, like departures. Moreover, a conductor can use the Android application to check the validity of the tickets. Beside the possibility of getting an electronic ticket, which is stored on the phone, a website was built to enable new users of this system to register. An additional website was designed for administrators to see the data on the journeys of passengers and to analyse statistics results.
Background:
Hospitals are implementing a risk management system to avoid patient or surgery mix-ups. The trend is to use preoperative checklists. This work deals specifically with a type of patient identification, which is realized by storing patient data on a patient-fixed medium.
Material and methods:
In 127 ENT surgeries data relevant for patient identification were encrypted in a 2D-QR-Code. The code, as a separate document coming with the patient chart or as a patient wristband, has been decrypted in the OR and the patient data were presented visible for all persons. The decoding time, the compliance of the patient data, as well as the duration of the patient identification was compared with the traditional patient identification by inspection of the patient chart.
Results:
A total of 125 QR codes were read. The time for the decrypting of QR-Code was 5.6 s, the time for the screen view for patient identification was 7.9 s, and for a comparison group of 75 operations traditional patient identification was 27.3 s. Overall, there were 6 relevant information errors in the two parts of the experiment. This represents a ratio of 0.6% for 8 relevant classes per each encrypted QR code.
Conclusion:
This work allows a cost effective way to technically support patient identification based on electronic patient data. It was shown that the use in the clinical routine is possible. The disadvantage is a potential misinformation from incorrect or missing information in the HIS, or due to changes of the data after the code was created. The QR-code-based patient tracking is seen as a useful complement to the already widely used identification wristband.
Information technology and new media allow for collecting and sharing personal information at unprecedented levels. This study explores issues of privacy and surveillance with new interactive technologies. Based on a year-long field study, this project examines how people think about privacy and surveillance when using mobile social networks. Using the case of Dodgeball, the study found that most informants were not concerned about privacy when using the mobile social network because they felt they were in control of their personal information. There was, however, evidence of 3 kinds of surveillance present in everyday usage of Dodgeball: voluntary panopticon, lateral surveillance, and self-surveillance. This study sheds light on the everyday conceptions, meanings, and activities associated with surveillance, privacy, and interactive technologies.
"The Internet of Things," which merges cloud computing with radio-frequency identification, wireless sensors, and other forms of embedded intelligence to develop the next generation of networked "smart" devices, has become a buzzword in China, giving rise to investors' guides, articles in the popular press, and a slew of dedicated websites. Experts caution that China's prowess is limited and that leading research on the Internet of Things is coming out of Europe and the United States. But with strong government support and a huge interest in new technologies, China's influence is growing in the emerging field.
Popular portrayals of ubiquitous computing downplay the surveillance implications of emerging forms of networked interactivity. This essay supplements such accounts by analyzing interactive spaces as digital enclosures which restrict access to the means of interaction to those who “freely” submit to the detailed forms of monitoring that take place within them. It supplements privacy-based critiques of surveillance with questions about the ownership and control of such data and the implications of this control for networked communication.
Rift Opens over European Coronavirus Contact Tracing Apps
- D Busvine
Usage of QR code in tourism industry
- M Emek
Australia: A poor model for QR data ‘attendance tracking
- G Greenleaf
Quick Response Codes in a COVID-19 Environment
- Australian Cyber Security Centre
Using QR-codes for attendance tracking. Int’l Congf. Frontiers in Education: Computer Science and Computer Engineering (FECS)
- D Deugo
The death of QR codes and the rise of new technology. Digital Operative
- E Kaiserauer
The QR code has turned COVID-19 check-ins into a golden opportunity for marketing and data companies. ABC news
- K Nguyen
Are QR codes dead? Forbes Magazine
- I Pozin
The COVIDSafe app is a case of the Emperor’s New Clothes
- P Dev
Electronic check-in guidance and QR codes
- Nsw Government
COVID Safe app detected just 17 contacts not found by manual tracers after $7 million spent on advertising
- J Kearsley
The proliferation of QR code check-ins is a ‘dog's breakfast’. Is there a better way? ABC News
- J Purtill
Australia’s Covidsafe coronavirus tracing app works as few as one in four times for some devices
- J Taylor
Australia: Federal government agency issues warning about QR codes
- S Hickey
QR Codes Are Dead, Trampled by Easier-to-Use Apps
- B L Ochman
Family discovers grandad’s phone filled with DOZENS of pictures of QR codes in COVID app mix-up
- K Wilkie
How WeChat founder’s obsession with QR codes reshapes Chinese internet
- Yuan