‘There’s an app for that: Tech governance during COVID-19’

Following the publication of Data Justice and COVID-19: Global Perspectives, the Oxford Internet Institute is hosting a discussion among leading experts to reflect on the enduring lessons for technological governance following from the pandemic.

Edited by Linnet Taylor, Gargi Sharma, Aaron Martin and Shazade Jameson, Data Justice and COVID-19 is a unique collection of 38 essays from international authors, providing commentary and analysis on how countries around the world are turning to digital technology as a mode of governance. Since the book’s publication, we’ve witnessed a wave of proposals and interventions based on the use of digital technology: apps for contact tracing, immunity passports, digital identity credentials, biometrics, and so forth. But what might their widespread adoption mean for our societies and polities?

We have invited Dr Seda Gürses, Dr Michael Veale, Nikita Aggarwal, Dr Aaron Martin and Corinne Cath-Speth to join in a discussion about the implications of the pandemic for the future of technological governance. The experts will draw from their backgrounds in academia and activism, to discuss the implications of contact-tracing apps, data protection and privacy regulations, as well as biometric surveillance. The effects of these technologies will remain, even when the pandemic recedes. As such, we invite you to join this crucial conversation on the (post) pandemic ‘new normal’ of technological governance.