Prosociality and endorsement of liberty: Communal and individual predictors of attitudes towards surveillance technologies.

Background: During the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, digital tracking technologies were recognised as one of the key tools in preventing the spread of the virus and maintaining health security. However, they also raised numerous controversies because of their potential to endanger civil rights and privacy. Most studies on the acceptance of anti-COVID-19 tracking technologies did not include important social factors and did not examine the directionality between variables. We aimed to fill this gap in the present study.

Methods: We conducted a four-wave, representative longitudinal panel survey among Polish citizens on the relationship between acceptance of anti-COVID-19 tracking technologies and prosociality, national identification, and endorsement of individual liberty. Analyses were performed using random-intercept cross-lagged panel models.

Results: We observed bidirectional cross-lagged relationships between prosociality and acceptance of anti-COVID 19 tracking technologies, with a stronger path from prosociality to acceptance than the other way around. Endorsement of individual liberty predicted negative attitudes towards technologies and this relation was strengthened by perceived threat of future technological surveillance. We did not find a significant relationship between acceptance of technologies and national identification at the within-subject level.

Conclusions: This is the first study to analyse dynamic within-person relationships between communal and individual aspects and acceptance of anti-COVID-19 surveillance technologies. We conclude that prosocial attitude may lead to social acceptance of technology that, while helpful to fight with a pandemic, might also infringe on personal rights.