Re:Only 13% of UK adults trust big tech firms with handling ...
by bogle on Monday June 10, 2019 @08:27AM
(#20146065)
Older family members of mine, who are conservative, have this knee-jerk response that it's valuable but there's no downside. As they lack critical thinking skills when they are challenged to suggest the value of this data to bad actors they will brush it off with an, "I can't think of any." Then if pushed they will really not be able to think of the possible consequences.
They all have the vote. They believe what they are told by people like them. They're uneducatable. I think they may be more that 13%!
As for the 13%, my guess is that they think "Important people say that it will help us to apply computers to NHS data, so they should have at it and advance civilization. Even better that it will be based on UK data, because they might pay us directly and they might be able to find current NHS inefficiencies, which may counter the austerity cuts that lengthened wait times and made our cancer statistics worse than US statistics. Finally, the UK will be thought of as the leading edge of this tech advance, and that might bring investments, employment, and tax receipts."
There could also be the realistic/fatalistic perspective that public opinion has little or no effect on government decision-making so you might as well think positively about it, because it's happening whenever they can sneak it through.