The global battle for control of the digital economy is typically portrayed as one fought by only two titans: US and China, but that does not mean that the EU has been standing still. As this briefing documents, the EU has been making strong efforts to catch up using trade negotiations and trade rules to assert its own interests. In the process, the EU is trying to climb up on the backs of the developing countries, undermining the chance for all to equitably share in the benefits of technological development.

Only a small group will retain the privileges that workers fought to gain over the last 150 years. The origins of the gig economy — where short-term, freelance tasks are allocated by an online service — lie in Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform, launched in 2005, a few years before the term “gig working” was coined.

Data-driven digital health technologies have the power to transform health care. If these tools could be sustainably delivered at scale, they might have the potential to provide everyone, everywhere, with equitable access to expert-level care, narrowing the global health and wellbeing gap. Conversely, it is highly possible that these transformative technologies could exacerbate existing health-care inequalities instead.