Standards for ICT products and services that support active and healthy ageing (AHA) can contribute to better usability, quality and safety of those products and services. The PROGRESSIVE project – of which AGE is a partner – aims to influence the perspective taken by manufacturers, researchers and policy makers so that standards enable to meet end users’ preferences. In its latest newsletter, the project presents its ethical approach to ICT standards for AHA.
Read PROGRESSIVE Newsletter #2
Standards (and the standardisation process) have often, at best, overlooked the needs of some older people, at worst, considered their needs as of less worth or relevance. Neither can be justified at a time when the demographic, social, political and ethical ‘dynamic’ that relates to the inclusion and empowerment of older people is gaining momentum.
10 Key ethical touchstones
Therefore, several key ethical ‘touchstones’ and issues have been identified that represent a particular focus for the PROGRESSIVE project:
- Accessibility and Usability
- Affordability
- Autonomy and Empowerment
- Beneficence and Non-Maleficence
- Care, Protection and Support
- Equality, Equity and Justice
- Inclusion and Non-Discrimination
- Interoperability
- Privacy, Safety and Security
Such ethical tenets will underpin key outputs of PROGRESSIVE (including the guidelines around co-production, standards for age-friendly communities and age-friendly smart homes that will be published in the coming months).
They are envisaged as supporting the reform or modernisation of standardisation frameworks in ways that will take increasing account of the voices of older people. More importantly those tenets and related publications will help to change the mindsets of both standards bodies and the varied stakeholders involved in the standardisation process.
For more information on PROGRESSIVE:
https://www.age-platform.eu/project/progressive or contact Estelle Huchet
For more information on AGE position on standardisation:
https://www.age-platform.eu/press-releases/standardisation-powerful-tool-address-population-ageing-and-support-age-friendly
