Mr. Seán Moynihan:

The interest and the safeguards we need to put in place probably affect all age groups. Marginalised groups, at any age, probably need more protection. If we look at the Government's policies, and the work done by the World Health Organization and UNESCO on how we do this, everything talks about how we do design, how we keep people safe around datasets and how we ultimately make sure that we use this responsibly.

On co-design, what I can do is maybe tell the Deputy a story about this. We have been on a journey around older people using technology for probably five to seven years. We ultimately let people lean in to where they might use technology to maximise their independence, autonomy and decision-making and we support managing the risks, especially for those in advanced old age with healthcare. That means talking to people, seeing what people are comfortable with and producing the research. From all the pilots and different things we have done, we produced research that actually showed what worked, what older people embrace and what they feel safe about, whether that is the use of their data or how they access it and what they want control of. That is the challenge here.

The Deputy identified the programme she worked for with Google. That is part of an outreach programme, where you ultimately go out to talk to groups like ours, to our members and to people who use services to see what works for them and what needs to be done. Every report being produced by different areas indicates, and anybody who has been on the journey learns, that is what people want. They want to be involved in the creation of that to ultimately use it. People realise this is something that can actually help them, but they are worried about the safeguards, about whether they and their information are protected, about becoming dependent or that somebody might take advantage. I think that is universal. What the committee has heard from us and others is that those who maybe have less voice, or those who are marginalised at every age group, are the ones most likely to be left out of a conversation and most likely to be taken advantage of or to have fear and anxiety, Maybe in that case, they will not get the benefits.