As we now live in the front end of the third decade of the 21st century, at a time when public discussions about rights, freedoms and ethics have been accentuated in so many aspects of life, in part because of how the COVID pandemic has stressed our societies, it’s certainly the case that rights, freedoms and ethics are to be found in the dialogue of how technology plays out in field of ageing and longevity. However this dialogue was at play well before the pandemic.
Here though, I think back to the summer of 2020 when I took part in a number of virtual speaker series discussions that focused on the technology themes – digital surveillance and digital inclusion. One such I listened to featured Shoshana Zuboff where she discussed her 2019 book The Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Zuboff referenced the overall risks to human agency from digital surveillance in every business sector including healthcare.
Consider for instance, under the healthcare file, the ongoing concern about privacy and security, protecting the gathering of health related data of older people in care systems, and the adoption of wearables, and sensors used in our own homes, in care homes or retirement residences, for behavioural monitoring purposes. Take these relevant lines from pages 246-247 of Zuboff’s book:
“In 2002, the year that a still-secret surveillance capitalism achieved its first breakthroughs, a review of ‘wireless telemedicine’ stressed the value of home monitoring of the elderly and for the expansion of health services in remote areas.”
“Many articles on health monitoring continue to emphasize its utility for the elderly, but the conversation has decisively moved on from this earlier state of grace.”
“It is eloquent testimony to the health care system’s failure to serve the needs of second-modernity individuals that we now access health data and advice from our phones while these pocket computers aggressively access us.”
Well over the last few years, the pace has picked up in the dialogue around the advances in the multi-faceted market of Age Tech, which Keren Etkinof TheGerontechnologisteasily defines in a nutshell as “digital technology that’s built around the needs and wants of older adults”.
Of course monitoring and data gathering technologies as mentioned above are just one part of this digital mix. But what are we to make of rights, freedoms and ethics in this Age Tech advance? What input do older adults have in decisions over the design and application of these monitoring and data gathering technologies?
On Feb.4, 2022 I attended a webinar by the University of Ottawa Centre for Health Law, Policy & Ethics, titled Law and Ethics of Smart Homes and Well-being Monitoring. One of the speakers, Krista James,National Director – Canadian Centre for Elder Lawpresented, in a conversational, candid manner, an informative segment that I submit would have lifted your head out of a cloud as you pondered all that is Age Tech.
Next week in part two on this law and ethics webinar, I will share more on what Krista James and the rest of the panel had to say, but I leave here one point James raised to remind us about – how throughout COVID, strong if not dramatic public health policies and restrictions brought us to confront the issue of what limits we should go to in order to protect the health and safety of older adults in, for example, care homes.
So one question might go, to what extent do we allow an older adult the freedom to exercise their right to accept informed risk and give informed consent to be locked in, monitored or otherwise supported by technology in their own home or an institutional care home? While we would agree there were systemic problems which found institutional care homes ill prepared, for example short staffing and/or tool kits, these residence operators still have a duty of care to protect everyone.
Which opens the window wider on how we need to understand the value of Age Tech innovations in general and more specifically, agree or not, that digital monitoring and such should be more quickly adopted in care settings; and how more broadly we need to step up and invest in the education on these technologies for use not only by the care staff teams, but for the individuals in care and their family/friend caregivers.
At the same time we can ask – how should we better understand our own individual acceptance of risk and reward when it comes to monitoring and data gathering in our lives?
Postscript.
In another 2020 speaker series –Digital Inclusion of Older Persons from the World Summit on the Information Society Forum (WSIS)– I still recall how the moderator Daniela Bas restated a quizzical comment made by someone earlier on the panel: “Is it also a right to age without technology?”Somehow I think this adds to the list another interesting Age Tech debate question!
