Tech City boss: Share more personal data to improve your quality of life
Londoners should be more willing to share data about themselves, according to the boss of Tech City — because it will improve their quality of life.
Gerard Grech, chief executive of the Shoreditch-based non-profit organisation to support tech firms, believes making more anonymised personal data available to borough councils would create better services.
Mr Grech called for a “digital-social contract”, inspired by schemes in Israel and Iceland. Sharing could be as simple as analysing Oyster cards to improve traffic flow or train punctuality.
At Hackney council, he said, officials gave planning data to “ethical hackers” who wrote algorithms to make it easier for residents to apply for extensions and loft conversions.
He said: “If we’re able to find a way in which people are willing to give some of their data in order for local government to make better, more informed decisions so that we can collectively live in a better state, that’s a positive step forward.”
But his comments come amid fears over security after the TalkTalk website was hacked last week, putting customers’ personal details at risk.
Privacy campaigner Daniel Nesbitt, of Big Brother Watch, warned: “It is all well and good for companies to ask for more information but as cases such as TalkTalk have shown, strong encryption is necessary.”
