Karlin Lillington’s biggest technology stories of 2021: NFTs, Meta and more

As 2021 winds to a close, allow me to offer a selection of the technology stories this year that I thought were the most significant. This is a highly personal selection, and certainly not comprehensive, but a range of subjects that I thought noteworthy and generally, of long-term implication.

Top of the list for me is the breakthrough represented by new vaccines based on mRNA technology which, for the majority of the Irish population, has meant protection from the worst ravages of Covid thanks to either Pfizer or Moderna's mRNA "jab". Last year at this time many of us were thinking ahead to the promise of eventually getting one in 2021.

Next up, a key Irish story was the May cyberattack on the HSE computer systems, which brought acute national awareness of this too-often ignored threat. As with pandemics, this monumental hack highlighted how a lack of preparedness can swiftly translate into a sweeping catastrophe with unexpected impacts that filter down into every level of society.

Not just the HSE but organisations across the State now better understand why the cost of good preparation is dwarfed by the cost of addressing a major breach.

Social media's data key to keeping young people safe online

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DPC needs an overhaul of funding, structure and leadership

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Facebook will shrug off the latest onslaught of bad press

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Graham Dwyer case: Government arrogantly ignored European Court of Justice ruling from 2014

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Another long-rumbling Irish story that turned international was discontent with decisions (or lack of them) by the Data Protection Commissioners (DPC). Other national data protection authorities have consistently disagreed with punishments proposed here in major cases against some of tech’s biggest companies, demanding significant increases in fines.

In 2021, even former EU commissioner Viviene Reding, the architect of the General Data Protection Regulation, expressed frustration, suggesting the GDPR might need reshaping to allow decisions against powerful multinationals to be dealt with at EU, not "one-stop shop" level.

On the other hand, the DPC showed domestic mettle in holding firm in its important decision on the illegality of the government’s Public Services Card. Over many years, the DPC has faced opaque and arrogant government departments, ministers and public servants on the core issue of the legality of the card, and associated issues. This month, the Government at last backed down and accepted the decision. That’s a welcome win in real and symbolic terms.

A less noticed domestic story but one with serious implications was the surprise August sale of the genomics company Genuity to an American rival, albeit one funded by one of Genuity's major venture investors.

Controversially, Genuity had a stated goal of gathering the genomes of a tenth of the Irish population, which would have placed what was essentially a comprehensive national genome database into private hands. The sale likely puts paid to such a privatisation of what could be a priceless, publicly-managed research resource, but questions remain about what happens now with the tens of thousands of DNA profiles already collected.

Taxes were high in the headlines throughout 2021 as the world worked towards and then, surprisingly, reached a huge multinational tax agreement and one with major implications for Ireland. We've long been the target of wagging fingers for enabling certain forms of multinational tax ...creativity, shall we say. And now, they'll all be paying 15 per cent and not necessarily to us. Only time will tell what, if any, impact that has here.

Does Facebook ever go out of the news? It sure didn't in 2021, facing ever more questions about how it functions, how decisions are made, and its societal impact.

Starting in January with questions over how the platform was used by the Trump supporters who broke into US Capitol buildings, the year unspooled with one Facebook story after another. Former employee and whistleblower Frances Haugen has kept Facebook in the headlines for months with leaked documents, public testimony to lawmakers, and media interviewers, adding to Facebook's headaches.

The company's surprise decision in October to have a parent-company rebrand as Meta was seen widely, rightly or wrongly, as a public relations exercise. So was the bold statement that it planned to lead the way in developing what it termed the "metaverse", an immersive, virtual reality-intensive new version of the internet, which we'd experience as digital avatars.

Who knows: the announcement may have been poorly timed and usefully distracting, yet the “metaverse” could be where we eventually get. But don’t believe the hype, it’s not happening any time soon.

Speaking of hype, any backward glance at 2021 would be lacking without a mention of the baffling phenomenon of NFTs – “non-fungible tokens” – generally meaning artworks (or is it “artworks”) that one can own title to even though they can be easily reproduced, because they’re digital.

NFTs are closely tied to the hype around the blockchain, and the cryptocurrencies reliant on blockchains, with many of the eyewateringly big prices paid for NFTs paid by, oh wait, big league crypto proponents. And all of that fits into the hype around what’s called Web 3.0. All of which might be exciting, major shifts in the internet and art and finance … or maybe just hype.

Let’s see what 2022 brings.