It Takes Two to Techno-Tango An Analysis of a Close Embrace Between Google/Apple and the EU in Fighting the Pandemic Through Contact Tracing Apps

While member states and EU governments were fully focused on curbing the staggering COVID-19 infection numbers, on April 10 (2020) Apple and Google, afterwards often referred to as ‘Gapple’ (Busvine, Citation2020) in the European public debate, announced they were joining forces in an effort to fight the pandemic. In anticipation of COVID-19 vaccines, there was in fact a growing desire to digitize the well-established, virological contact tracing techniques through contact tracing applications so as to allow for more speedy, accurate and detailed mappings of the propagation of the virus. To smooth the development of COVID-19 related digital tools (such as contact tracing apps) while remaining privacy-friendly, Gapple decided to release APIs – which are Application Programming Interfaces that allow applications to ‘talk’ to one another – designed to facilitate the exchange of data between Android and IOS for contact tracing purposes. Most European member states subsequently developed contact tracing apps running on this Google/Apple API infrastructure (GPAW Team, Citationn.d.).

Despite concerns raised by social scientists and philosophers about the growing expansion of Big Tech in the public domains of liberal democratic societies, which goes along with the implementation of contact tracing apps (Floridi, Citation2020; Klein, Citation2020; Morozov, Citation2020; Sharon, Citation2020; Taylor Citation2021), little public scrutiny has been raised around this use of privatized Big Tech infrastructure for public health services. Therefore, we would like to seize the opportunity of this Forum on Big Tech to consider the significance of this development for the (ongoing) expansion of Big Tech worldwide. Is the implementation of the Gapple infrastructure in EU contact tracing apps another illustration of the increasing dependency on Big Tech companies? We argue that the ‘dependency-frame’ of the EU on Big Tech cannot fully capture the development of the Gapple infrastructure for EU contact tracing apps. We propose an approach that sees the interaction of Gapple and the EU as a complex ‘techno-tango,’ where both parties shape each other in a game of push and pull. The techno-tango then, is a process of mutually shaping technology and policy by both EU policymakers and Big Tech companies. This approach builds on the concept of coproduction (Jasanoff, Citation2004), or the two-way interplay between technology and society, and adds to the existing critical social research involving Big Tech as it allows for a more fine-grained understanding of particular events in the expansion of Big Tech in Europe.

To do this, we first give a concise overview of the development of contact tracing apps in the EU and account for the multi-layered stakes at play in this process. By showing the EU and national level policy and initiatives, as well as the initiatives of Gapple step by step, we show how they interrelate and respond to each other. We then offer a reflection on how this overview fits into the broader debate on the growing influence of big tech companies. The main purpose of this piece is to provide a starting point to question the reciprocal dependencies of public and private actors in the context of developing contact tracing apps. We propose that the relationship between these actors is a shifting power dynamic in which it is sometimes EU policy and sometimes Big Tech that is the leading partner. Following this line of reasoning, we suggest that conceptualizing this relationship as a techno-tango opens up the current debate on the social implications of the expansion of Big Tech, as it may raise new questions about public-private partnerships and the role of tech companies and policy initiatives.