Could tech giants get us out of lockdown?
The Story
The Times
4 • 1.5K Ratings
🗓️ 23 April 2020
⏱️ 29 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Technology might be the answer to our problems - but could we be giving up our privacy in return for our liberty?
Guest:
Danny Fortson, The Sunday Times West Coast correspondent
Host: David Aaronovitch
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Heaven knows we all want out of lockdown. Could Apple and Google be our |
| 0:06.6 | saviors and help get us out? Here they are these two trillion dollar companies saying |
| 0:12.3 | give us a couple months and we'll turn every phone these two trillion dollar companies saying, |
| 0:13.1 | give us a couple months and we'll turn every phone |
| 0:15.2 | on the planet into a tracking device. |
| 0:17.3 | In some countries, governments are tracking people's movements |
| 0:20.0 | in a way that only months ago, all but the most authoritarian would have been |
| 0:24.3 | unthinkable. But these are extraordinary times and here too we might well put our |
| 0:31.1 | trust in Silicon Valley. |
| 0:34.0 | What engineers do is build stuff and they don't often stop to ask whether they should. |
| 0:42.0 | If you're trying to put a genie back in the bottle, it would serve you |
| 0:44.8 | well to think about how you create the genie in the first place. |
| 0:47.6 | You're listening to stories of our times from the Times and the Sunday Times. I'm David Aronovich. Today, could the tech giants |
| 0:56.4 | get us out of lockdown and if we give up our privacy to help them, will we ever get it back? Attention at all passengers. You can now book your train tickets on Uber and get 10% back in Uber credits to spend on your next train journey. |
| 1:24.6 | So no excuses not to visit your in-laws this Christmas. |
| 1:28.1 | Trains, now on Uber. |
| 1:31.6 | Tees and sees apply. Check the Uber app. |
| 1:34.0 | Picture this. Static cars, idling engines, angry horns. |
| 1:41.0 | Now, picture you, zooming past it all, light and breezy. |
| 1:49.0 | Ah, the sweet feeling of whizzing past traffic. |
| 1:54.0 | Book your train journey via avantewestcoast.co. UK. |
| 1:58.0 | avante west coast feel good travel. Feel Good Travel. I. See 19. I open up the app and the first thing it asks me is if I've been tested for COVID-19 and I haven't so I put no and then it says |
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