Apple has been able to edge out slow-moving state

Tech giants filling digital roles where governments should have stepped up

Apple events used to be easy — even fun. The glossy shows were simple product launches with a simple message: you know, here’s a new iPhone, and here’s why you want it.

Now, they are overwhelming. This week, at its annual Worldwide Developers Conference gathering, Apple unveiled new versions of its software for Macs, iPads, iPhones, watches and more. Among the features mentioned: Apple will read text in photos, let you share things over video calls, let you control an iPad from your Mac, change how you use multiple programs on a tablet, let you put widgets on the iPad’s home screen and, oh, about 400 more things.

Watch enough of these things and you start to realize the barrage of cool new stuff is the point. As Apple execs steamroll through 100 new features, and roll off statistics about the millions or, in some cases, billions of people using their products, you just sort of give in. “Oh, the new iPhone software has more features in one update than any person could possibly remember? Fine, I’ll take one, I guess.”

But the fact that 25 million people online watched an event ostensibly aimed at app creators is a sign of just how influential Apple is. The company’s enormous scale has also made it a default part of people’s lives. You can use it instead of a credit

card. And as Apple announced this week, you can soon use your iPhone to store your driver’s licence, your medical records and even let family access your data after you die.

That all seems very convenient, or at least forward-thinking. But it points to the way in which the sheer size of tech companies — the fact that they aren’t just products, but platforms used by significant portions of the globe — means they become de facto states or governments. And maybe there are things (digital identity, medical records, and more) that the actual state should be leading the way on, rather than letting private companies entrench themselves further.

Google, for example, has become the way for hundreds of millions of people to search the web, use email, or view videos through YouTube. Facebook is the way neighbourhoods have gone digital, among many other things. And Twitter is the default public square — the place for politicians, celebrities, writers and others to make pronouncements to the world.

Many of the products big tech companies offer are fine things for private companies to own. There’s no reason, for example, that the government should be in the business of online video, ecommerce or social networking.

But when it comes to things like digital identity or medical records, the argument for state involvement becomes much more compelling. It’s not so much that there should be a

Canada-made smartphone with your social insurance card on it. And digital things aren’t in and of themselves better, but done right, they can be more convenient — more secure because of layers of security, but also simply easier.

Yet various levels of government seem significantly behind on the digitization of their services — of dealing with the reality that a smartphone either is now, or soon will be, a vastly more important thing than the owner’s wallet full of plastic cards.

Take Estonia — which, surprisingly to some, often leads the world on digital initiatives. Citizens there have access to a wide array of digital services, from identity to health records to taxes and banking, and a plethora of more.

Compared to Canada, at least, a country that ranks 97th in GDP is a digital paradise.

Where a country like Estonia seems to have made real advances isn’t just in the technology itself, but in thinking that the technology is simply part of governance. And when a company like Apple makes plans to let users access the data of loved ones after their deaths — something that there is currently no specific law around — we are ceding key parts of life to private companies who, it bears repeating, have their own agendas.

A lingering and deeply unfortunate problem with Canada is its mediocrity: our willingness to accept that, because things are OK, there’s no real reason to strive to make them better. Our proximity to the lumbering giant next door surely doesn’t help, either.

But perhaps when it comes to digitization of services that should be available to everyone — everything from a digital driver’s licence to a better and more streamlined tax structure — Canada should look to lead rather than merely hobble along. Apple and other big tech companies might have all the flashy events, but ultimately it is the body that represents us who should be moving its citizens and its services into the 21st century — not a private company who, however wellintentioned, simply overwhelms with its power and size.

Multinational tech giants keep getting bigger at the expense of domestic media and competitiveness. This ongoing series looks at the challenge for governments, and how they should respond.