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A first look at Android applications in Google Play related to COVID-19
Empirical Software Engineering ( IF 4.1 ) Pub Date : 2021-04-21 , DOI: 10.1007/s10664-021-09943-x
Jordan Samhi 1 , Kevin Allix 1 , Tegawendé F Bissyandé 1 , Jacques Klein 1
Affiliation  

Due to the convenience of access-on-demand to information and business solutions, mobile apps have become an important asset in the digital world. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, app developers have joined the response effort in various ways by releasing apps that target different user bases (e.g., all citizens or journalists), offer different services (e.g., location tracking or diagnostic-aid), provide generic or specialized information, etc. While many apps have raised some concerns by spreading misinformation or even malware, the literature does not yet provide a clear landscape of the different apps that were developed. In this study, we focus on the Android ecosystem and investigate Covid-related Android apps. In a best-effort scenario, we attempt to systematically identify all relevant apps and study their characteristics with the objective to provide a first taxonomy of Covid-related apps, broadening the relevance beyond the implementation of contact tracing. Overall, our study yields a number of empirical insights that contribute to enlarge the knowledge on Covid-related apps: (1) Developer communities contributed rapidly to the COVID-19, with dedicated apps released as early as January 2020; (2) Covid-related apps deliver digital tools to users (e.g., health diaries), serve to broadcast information to users (e.g., spread statistics), and collect data from users (e.g., for tracing); (3) Covid-related apps are less complex than standard apps; (4) they generally do not seem to leak sensitive data; (5) in the majority of cases, Covid-related apps are released by entities with past experience on the market, mostly official government entities or public health organizations.



中文翻译:

初步了解 Google Play 中与 COVID-19 相关的 Android 应用程序

由于按需访问信息和业务解决方案的便利性,移动应用程序已成为数字世界的重要资产。在 COVID-19 大流行的背景下,应用程序开发人员通过发布针对不同用户群(例如所有公民或记者)、提供不同服务(例如位置跟踪或诊断辅助)的应用程序,以各种方式加入了应对工作,提供通用或专业信息等。虽然许多应用程序通过传播错误信息甚至恶意软件引起了一些担忧,但文献尚未提供已开发的不同应用程序的清晰概况。在这项研究中,我们专注于 Android 生态系统并调查与 Covid 相关的 Android 应用程序。在尽力而为的情况下,我们试图系统地识别所有相关应用程序并研究它们的特征,目的是提供与 Covid 相关的应用程序的第一个分类,将相关性扩大到接触者追踪的实施之外。总体而言,我们的研究产生了许多有助于扩大与 Covid 相关的应用程序知识的经验见解:(1) 开发人员社区对 COVID-19 做出了迅速贡献,早在 2020 年 1 月就发布了专用应用程序;(2) 与新冠病毒相关的应用程序向用户提供数字工具(例如,健康日记),用于向用户广播信息(例如,传播统计数据),并从用户那里收集数据(例如,用于追踪);(3) 与新冠病毒相关的应用程序没有标准应用程序复杂;(4) 他们一般似乎不会泄露敏感数据;(5) 在大多数情况下,

更新日期:2021-04-21
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