Public opinion changes its mind about Big Tech and privacy during the pandemic

Recent polls show that the COVID-19 pandemic has eased aversions against large tech companies. Most Americans now support tech companies involved in COVID-19 research, for example.

The recent round of polls is a turning point from 2019. In 2015, 71% of Americans said tech companies had a positive impact on the United States, with that number dropping to 50% in 2019, according to Pew Research Center. In those same years, negative opinions on teen technology reached 33%.

Large companies are now entering the public health sector

But during the pandemic, technology companies are entering a new field: public health. Google and Apple have announced that they want to invest in an initiative to support contact tracking through Bluetooth technology.

MIT researchers have developed an app for a similar purpose and other technology companies are lending their support to help fight COVID-19 in various ways. Taken together, the results of several polls raise questions about the continued desire for privacy and security-focused products and services, which were the beneficiaries of an estimated $ 124 billion in spending in this sector in 2019, according to Gartner estimates. .

38% of Americans say their vision of the technology sector is more positive than the outbreak began, according to a Harris / Axios survey. 40% said that the technology industry should provide solutions and a whopping 81% said they support large technology companies that invest in contact tracking.

The results are encouraging for public health officials as any contact tracking app in the United States would probably not be mandatory, and a recent study said that this app would have to be adopted by 60% of a population to be effective.

Privacy is a fixed point, not a passing fad

The question is whether these positive feelings will continue to hold true when the pandemic has passed. To companies that have built their businesses around the concept of privacy as a product, it seems unlikely.

The previous distrust of large technology companies that has developed as a result of data and privacy violations has expanded Overton's window, a publicly acceptable range of policy proposals, so as to make privacy a fixed reference in our world. , not a passing fad.

Tor Blair, head of the growth sector of Enigma, a decentralized and open source protocol, says that privacy and security will always be essential, even if users' attitudes towards privacy fluctuate over time.

"If the big tech companies are committed to defending their users' privacy and security by default, users will expect privacy to be a universal value," said Blair. “Anyone who takes advantage of this trust will be punished by users, not to mention regulators. In this world, privacy technologies become an essential core of any product. "