By William G K Piper (Bill Piper), an award-winning writer and Business Management student at LSST Aston

Executive Summary

There are many ways government ‘could’ use technology to improve our lives. It, however, will be tethered economically and politically.

Introduction

Technology is increasing at a phenomenal rate. Sixty years ago, few houses had telephones; now, there are 4.88 billion in people’s pockets, and virtually every child over 5 has one (Bulao, 2022). People paid for things predominantly with bits of paper and round metal tokens or cash. Now we use bits of plastic, our phones and even our watches. If we wanted to know our blood pressure, we went to a doctor or hospital; now, we look at our watches. Indeed, we can even use our watches to make phone calls, take photographs or send messages.

How could governments use this leap in technology to improve our lives?

The question of how governments might improve our lives is fraught with controversy. We have seen in recent years debate about which technologies could, should -or should not - be adopted by our Government. This report will present several ideas, advantages, practicalities, and potentially unviable aspects.

A report of this length can only highlight a few ideas; full consideration of how the Government might and might not improve our lives through technology would take 1 to 1.5 thousand pages, not words.

The first consideration was what would improve our lives. Technology is already used medically to research better treatments, care, and even causes of our ailments, such as the correlation between Herpes (cold sores) to the Nervous system and Alzheimer’s. Further medical research delves into robot operations and the like.

What Governments Could do

Medical

Mortality in trauma patients is considerably reduced if appropriate treatment is received promptly (Okada et al, 2020). Thus, any medical information available to those on the scene must be a great lifesaver rather than waiting for tests and medical records.

Such vital information could be carried on an ID card, even our response to certain medications, not just potential reactions but their efficacy (Paternity for Life, 2022).

Artificial Intelligence

The adoption and development of AI will assist the Government in various ways, from improving traffic management on Smart motorways to quicker and better diagnosis in doctors’ surgeries and hospitals. Perhaps the most significant area that would benefit could be National Security, predicting political events worldwide and suggesting the optimum solution. Assess the actions of potential terrorists and criminals. Thus, creating a more stable and safer country.

The Northern Ireland Hard Border

There have been several potential software solutions to the issue during the past few years. One such suggestion was a Blockchain solution that would effectively make secure containers Freeports on wheels. (Chalmers, 2019). Blockchain is a way of recording information from various sites that is considerably more secure than all other systems.

Security

Many countries have Identity cards; indeed, this country had them during the 2^nd World War. The UK Government introduced a draft bill in 2004 and, after much toing and froing, eventually dropped it in 2011.

The Electoral Commission has been recommending Photographic Identification for polling for years, decades ago.

Eventually, in 2002 Electoral Identity cards (BBC, 2002), were introduced in Northern Ireland to reduce electoral fraud.

Law Enforcement

The British Government needs help to count the number of people legally entering and leaving the UK. Whilst Transport for London aims for 1 billion transactions per year by Oyster card across the light railway, underground and busses. Intelligent Transport, 2019.

The RAC (2021) debates the historical and future differences in collecting motoring fines from visiting drivers. It is not conceivable that the Government could enforce these fines using ANPR (Automatic Number Plate Recognition) before the vehicles board the return ferries.

Resistance

Modern technology could allow us to be implanted with a ‘chip’ (like most of us do with our pets) (Euro.News, 2022), whereby we could be identified. Thus, not only could a scanner be used to identify us, but at polling stations, perhaps, we could wave our chip at cash tills instead of our watches and, more importantly, that chip could refer to our medical history.

Recent developments in medical research allow for our acceptance and efficacy of drugs.

According to the UN Declaration of Human Rights, “Privacy underwrites human dignity”, Global Internet Liberty Campaign (UD). The privacy should always be underpinned. A contrary line of reasoning is that there is no problem if one has nothing to hide. Most of us appear to be law-abiding citizens; perhaps their reticence makes sense.

Most of us carry our Driving Licences, yet there is a furor against an Identity Card. ‘It erodes our civil liberties’ (Politics.co.uk, 2012). With the proliferation of CCTV cameras in the UK (the highest number per capita excluding China (Carlo, 2019)), it could be thought that our civil liberties have already been eroded. Those complaining about their civil liberties appear to ignore the security and law enforcement that ID cards bring. Indeed, one proposal was to merge the id card with a passport and possibly a driving license.

Many people fear ‘Big Brother (Orwell, 1948). They object to the Government tracking them by ID cards or the like. Nevertheless, most of those who oppose are carrying their ‘phones, debit card, credit cards, and loyalty cards – by which methods can similarly be tracked. Not to mention the amount of personal information spread on social media.

Modern society seems to be on a self-destruct cycle, finding conspiracy theories in everything. Even to the extent that the Covid Pandemic was a plot (Lynas, M 2020), and the vaccine contained a ‘chip’ (Australian Government, Department of Health 2022).

Viability

The British Government has a vast and miserable history of financial overrun and waste. Although the list is endless, here are a few examples

TSR2, “colossal waste of the taxpayers’ money.” (Noland, D 2013)

£87.6m, Paracetamol, £27.3m Aspirin (Pageb 2016)

£10bn, Abandoned NHS IT system (Syal, R 2013) (Taxpayers’ alliance say £11bn 2011)

The pandemic, Track & Trace, fraudulent claims and such like. Will we ever know the actual cost?

Consequently, the Government’s track record is not outstanding. Nearly all significant projects are overrun, chronologically and financially. Even their selection of contractors in recent years does not stand up to scrutiny: - Overcharging the Government (tagging), Olympic Security (2012), private prisons and similar institutions. (BBC 2017, Carillion and 450 public sector projects. Neate, R & Davies, R 2020)

Conclusion

The government ‘could’ theoretically do any or all these things. How economically they might be done seems to be a more significant question. Nevertheless, the most outstanding question might be how much the Government might be allowed to do. Are we citizens of this country correct to resist these innovations, or should we adopt more technology?

References

Australian Government, Department of Health, 2022. Is it true do Covid 19 Vaccines Contain a Microchip or any Tracking Technology? [Online] Available At : https://www.health.gov.au/initiatives-and-programs/covid-19-vaccines/is-it-true/is-it-true-do-covid-19-vaccines-contain-a-microchip-or-any-kind-of-tracking-technology [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

BBC 2017, G4S – a Global Security Giant with a Chequered History. [Online] Available At : https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-41123840 [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

BBC. 2002. Electoral ID card plan unveiled [Online] Available At:  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/northern_ireland/2089810.stm [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Bulao, J 2022. [Online] Available At: https://techjury.net/blog/how-fast-is-technology-growing. [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Carlo, S 2019 [Online] Available At: https://news.yahoo.com/britain-more-surveillance-cameras-per-151641361.html [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Chalmers, J 2019. [Online] Available At :  https://www.reuters.com/article/uk-britain-eu-border [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Euro. News [Online] Available At: https://www.euronews.com/next/2018/05/31/microchips-are-getting-under-the-skin-of-thousands-in-sweden [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Intelligent Transport 2019. [Online] Available At : https://www.intelligenttransport.com/transport-news/77774/contactless-transactions-london-technology/ [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Lynas, M 2020), [Online] Available At: https://allianceforscience.cornell.edu/blog/2020/04/covid-top-10-current-conspiracy-theories/ [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Neate, R & Davies, R 2020. Carillion Collapse Two years on Government has Learned Nothing.[Online] Available At : https://www.theguardian.com/business/2020/jan/15/carillion-collapse-two-years-on-government-has-learned-nothing [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Noland, D 2013, Cancelled Britains High Mach Heartbreak. [Online] Available At : https://www.smithsonianmag.com/air-space-magazine/cancelled-britains-high-mach-heartbreak-4036788/ [Accessed 7th April 2022]

Okada K, et al.2020. Revision of ‘golden hour’ for hemodynamically unstable trauma patients: an analysis of nationwide hospital-based registry in Japan [Online] Available At:  https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7066640 [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Page 2016. Five Examples of Waste.  [Online] Available At : https://www.pagb.co.uk/content/uploads/2016/11/Five-examples-of-waste.pdf [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Paternity for Life. 2022. Pharmacogenomics (Drug Response)

[Online] Available At: https://www.paternityforlife.co.uk/services/clinical-tests/pharmacogenomics-drug-response/ 7th Feb 2023

Politics. Co.UK. 2021. Identity Cards. [Online] Available At :  https://www.politics.co.uk/reference/identity-cards/ [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

RAC. 2021. Could Brexit trigger a surge of speeding Brits in Europe?

[Online] Available At : https://www.rac.co.uk/drive/news/motoring-news/could-brexit-trigger-a-surge-of-speeding-brits-in-europe. [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Syal, R. 2013. Abandoned NHS IT system has cost £10bn so far.

[Online] Available At :  https://www.theguardian.com/society/2013/sep/18/nhs-records-system-10bn [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

Taxpayers’ Alliance. (2011). System Failure 11 Billion NHS IT System Finally Abandoned. [Online] Available At:    https://www.taxpayersalliance.com/_system_failure_11_billion_nhs_it_

system_finally_abandoned_but_not_before_slamming_a_high_bill_on_taxpayers  [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

UK Government (UD).Identity Cards. [Online] Available At : https://www.gov.uk/identitycards [Accessed 7th Feb 2023]

A winning submission to the London School of Science and Technology writing Competition 2022.