Human Rights Council

Independent Expert Report

Huge Data Gap About the Elderly

The Human Rights Council, which has its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, has closed its 45th Session a couple of weeks ago.

The UN Brief interviewed the appointed Independent Expert for the Human Rights of Older Persons to discuss their latest report, which revelead that the elderly are not being counted and that new tech devices and services that could greatly expand their enjoyment of life are seriously amiss.

These were some of the findings by Dr. Claudia Mahler, the UN Human Rights Independent Expert for Older Persons, and a senior researcher at the German Institute for Human Rights.

There is a huge data gap about the elderly, they are often not even counted in national statistics and even the private sector most of the time only has data on the very wealthy elderly. Besides, most technology products and services are not designed with an older person in mind, they should be actually invited to help design these products, remarked Dr. Mahler.

There is a gap and a lack of sufficiently granular data about the elderly in most national statistics’ compilations, she stated.

While technology can make the lives of the elderly easier, at present, according to findings by her predecessor, who visited China and New Zealand in 2019 to write the latest report, that access is very uneven, with broadband connectivity at the center of the catastrophic…