Group: Pandemic tech tools raise risk of everyday tracking

A new report group says digital contact tracing apps, AI and other tech tools that European governments rolled out to combat Covid-19 failed to play a key role in solving the pandemic and now threaten to make such monitoring widely accepted. The nonprofit research group AlgorithmWatch said that the health surveillance technologies many countries deployed were often adopted without enough transparency, safeguards or democratic debate. — AP

LONDON: Tech tools like digital contact tracing apps and artificial intelligence that European governments rolled out to combat Covid-19 failed to play a key role in solving the pandemic and now threaten to make such monitoring widely accepted, a new report shows.

The health surveillance technologies that many European countries deployed after the coronavirus pandemic erupted last year were often adopted without enough transparency, safeguards or democratic debate, according to a report released Thursday by AlgorithmWatch, a nonprofit research group that tracks the impact of AI systems.