Digital Solutions against the COVID-19-Pandemic

The corona crisis represents a global challenge largely flanked by digital information technologies. The so-called “crisis technologies” include, among others, three categories that are aimed at individual and collective well-being in the pandemic situation: information, communication, and containment platforms. Internationally, some highly digitized states in East Asia have shown how the population can be involved in the digital fight against the pandemic. At the same time, the use and handling of crisis technologies reveal far-reaching differences between ‘West’ and ‘East’, which point to other socio-cultural and ethical foundations. Current studies on the acceptance and rejection of instruments aimed at digitally fighting the pandemic show diverging preferences in different countries. Nevertheless, so far, there is little consideration of the extent to which the use and handling of digital technologies in crises refer to different socio-cultural and ethically anchored understandings of basic values.