Digitalisation in my line of work – environmental health – hasn’t been that huge, at least in this time which i have been on this field. Probably the biggest change during my time has been the national information system for environmental health care. When i started there were three, or maybe four, different programs or systems available to use, which were used in dífferent cities. These multiple different programs were meant for the same use; with them employees did all the daily tasks what job required: wrote reports, made certificates, filed down a test results (example from water or food samples) and saved contacts from customers etc..
But in 2019 Valvira and Ruokavirasto launched the national information system, that is now used by every city or co-area in the environmental health field. At first, there were a fair share of problems, especially in converting the data from different programs/systems to the new one. After two or three years of constant development and that especially from customer feedback, current state of the system is now decent to good. From what i have heard from the collegues who has worked decades in this field, all this has been done by hand(writing), of course, in the past. Sometimes it was slower, but at least you could trust your pen and paper, they have said. Through better systems and data gathering it is now possible to produce data that is easily available also for the public, like water quality results or food hygiene reports.
What future brings in terms of digitalisation to environmental health? I hope that laboratory analysis becomes faster, example with AI, so that the test results are ready quicker compared to present time, or maybe it would be possible to get instant results on the site – for some parameters at least. If AI could process and handle some basic tasks like different certificates and notifications and decicions automatically, and employees would just check them, that would give more time to do other tasks. Also, automating the archiving would save everybody’s time. Realistically thinking, automating some daily tasks, mentioned before, is probably possible in some timeframe, but i don’t believe that will happen in the near future in this field because of all the regulations.
Risks of an open digital society
Main concern of open digital society might be the privacy of users, which is linked to the cybersecurity. When data is collected from multiple sources, combining it could give more detailed information about people, which then can be exploited and used for example frauds, extortion and other criminal activities. Open digital society is also an era for disinformation and misinformation; everybody can create and share information. Then, when AI is harnessed to collect and create content continuosly, it gets even harder to spot what is a false information, especially in social media, and through AI the quantity of questionable information is multiplied. But because of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) people have more control over what infromation they allow to be collected. GDPR also requires organisation which is collecting the data, to delete it if they don’t have a legitimate reason, like a consent or a contract, to process that data. It is also requirement an organisation to have a data protection officer if certain criterias are met, including things to do with sensitive data. If a data breach has happened, the organisation is required to report that to authorities. That and other responsibilities brings also pressure to the organisations to do the right things, which in the end is very good thing, because it serves the customers and their privacy against cybercrime.
In my personal life i haven’t noticed a big differences after GDPR applied, since 2018. The most visible change has been that every website i go, it asks if i want to give my permission to collect the data (cookies). But it is great thing to know that i could, if i wanted, to limit collecting a data or ask about it from different organisations. Another one is personalised ads, mostly they are useless information for me, but rarely there are some interesting offers for example. In my work most of the information is public. But there are still some privacy things which, i felt, were taken into consideration earlier, before GDPR. Also, almost all work is done now via earlier mentioned national information system by Valvira and Ruokavirasto, so it take into consideration the important issues. Of course now, our employer has the data protection officer who helps to comply with data protection rules. But i have learned from another coures that GDPR limits sharing some information, what could cause problems and makes things harder, and so maybe it doesn’t always serve the good cause it is meant to. In overall GDPR bring more transparency to the digital world but it could also increase the costs (both time and money) which could discourage usability and innovation which might harm open digital society in long run.
ChatGPT
I asked from ChatGPT what are the key points in environmental health field and what future have in store for it. ChatGPT gave 10 key points. Only a few of the ten key points of environmental health field are somewhat correct, for example: water quality monitoring and build environment (to some extent, like what comes to indoor air quality). But many of the points are actually things that are part of the environmental protection, which have its own laws and regulation, like waste management and air quality (outdoors). And some points belong to even bigger picture like climate change. Then there are also some things that might need a cross-sectoral co-operation like chemical exposure events (rescue services = 1st respondant, environmental protection and also environmental health after acute situation is over). ChatGPT’s answers were not really precise and it confused the key points of environmental health to other sectors.
What future holds, ChatGPT answered quite realistically, for example about remote monitoring and data collecition but mixed again other sectors like healthcare to its answers. But in general, i think Chat GPT could be potential tool, example for brainstorming and planning – but at least now it needs more precise prompts, or to ask it to correct and clarify its answers. In overall, i feel AI has almost limitless possibilities, automating a lot of work but mainly to be a reliable assistant. Especially mixed with robotics i believe that it will be, and already is in some fields, great tool to do some really precise work where human coordination hits its limits.
Self evaluation
I learned the basics of creating a blog using the WordPress platform; it’s motivating when you can actually see visually something you have done. From the orientation material i found about Protonmail which has quite interesting approach to how encryption works and because of that i did a bit further investigating on it. I think i should still know more about GPDR. Even before this i knew the basics of it, thanks to the another course, but still it feels kinda a big entity that i can’t handle if i don’t know all the little details of it. Also, using the ChatGPT more would probably make some things easier and faster, but i am still a bit hesistant using it regularly, because i am worried it makes things too easy and it could cause losing some creativity and own voice.
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