Technology has brought us together, but can it lead us out of lockdown?

Tech alone is not the answer

Twenty years in tech and 10 years in Parliament have taught me that whatever the problem, technology alone is not the answer. Recently reports from the Ada Lovelace Institute  and the Institute for Global Change made this point strongly.

Any smart app is but one small part of a smart exit from lockdown. It must be integrated with the science, process and logistics of mass testing. An army of contract tracers to find the next wave of infections are likely to be part of the solution. They need to be recruited and trained, which takes time.

And this really matters. Trust in technology and science is absolutely essential for getting us through the next few months. The app is being built at speed but these questions are ones the team must be considering – why can’t we hear about that? And if, as seems likely, an app leads to some kind of immunity identification, we need to know it is based on solid principles - that it doesn’t exacerbate existing digital divides or surveillance worries.

I am glad that Google and Apple have integrated privacy into their platform but we really should not be dependent on them as either our conscience or our quality control. We need minimum commitments and protections - a group of concerned academics have drafted a bill which sets out what they might be. At the very least, the principle that we can control our own data, determine what happens to it and delete it at any time, must be enshrined.

The Covid-19 outbreak has accelerated our move online without closing the digital divide. It’s given a huge boost to the profits of Big Tech at a time when governments around the world were considering how to rein it in. And it has made the state a bigger part of all of our lives.

The last thing we need is to give people a choice between a Big Brother on their phone or months more inside. We must set out the right principles now – openness, transparency, proportionality, empowering people rather than technology, businesses or governments. The way in which we respond to the coronavirus will shape the nature of our longer-term digital future and become the basis on which we rebuild our social and economic lives. Let’s get it right.