Rising citizen expectations will spark rapid innovation in technology for public safety

History shows that times of crisis or disruption often stimulate innovation and great change. The COVID-19 pandemic has been no exception. The past two years have dramatically changed the way we think and feel about safety in the UK. The shared experience of the pandemic has caused seismic changes to public health responses and set new expectations and responsibilities for safety, accelerating changes in our personal priorities and catalysing the adoption of new technologies.

The pandemic has required citizens to embrace digital technology and skills to a level we’ve never seen before. How else could we have adjusted to a world of checking in with QR codes, telehealth consultations and those ubiquitous video conferencing calls. It’s hard to believe we’ve reached a point where society is now contemplating how far the metaverse will go to converge the real and virtual worlds – but that only serves to remind us that technology is moving at such a phenomenal rate. All of these developments are placing greater public expectations on our emergency services because we expect that they are working with tools that are as good, if not better, than what citizens are using.

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