Consider social impacts of digital tools, Dutch policymakers told

Technologies such as contact-tracing apps “only work if the social embedding is there”, researcher says

The use of digital tools to contain the Covid-19 pandemic in the Netherlands has increased societal inequalities but has also opened up opportunities for further digitisation, a report has found.

In its report, the European Parliamentary Technology Assessment network called on the Dutch parliament to improve how it researched the societal and ethical implications of digital tools before they were launched. The report noted that the use of such tools had grown starkly as the country battled against the pandemic. The Netherlands entered a ‘soft’ lockdown on 13 November in an attempt to curb a recent spike in Covid-19 infections.