Why the G7 must act now to address the digital health transformation
As the world becomes increasingly digital, the boundaries between geopolitics and technology platforms are vanishing. As Bruno Maçães argues, today geopolitics is about creating new territory that is shaped by the rapid developments of digital technology and artificial intelligence. The politics and economics of the digital transformation are driven by competition to shape the rules and standards of the new virtual world before others are able to do so.
Global efforts to strengthen the governance of large technology platforms are weak. This should be a high priority for the G7, but remains dangerously underdeveloped.
The G7 – the world’s most powerful democracies and technology leaders – is uniquely positioned to lead a coherent response to the emerging risks posed by unregulated digital health platforms. But its engagement has been fragmented by members wanting to protect the technologies deemed strategically important. This must change.
The strong public health case for regulation of platforms
There is a strong reason to begin addressing the challenges at hand with a focus on public health, where the digital transformation must be a tool for equity, not a driver of division.
From telemedicine and AI-driven diagnostics to mental health apps and algorithmic content moderation, digital platforms are reshaping health systems and health information. Digital health platforms are powerful actors: without proper regulation, they deepen inequalities, compromise safety and erode public trust. The digital determinants of health – any factor rooted in, contingent on or inextricably linked to the digital world that can directly or indirectly influence health or well-being – are influencing and interacting with other health determinants. The most obvious impact is on the mental health of children and young people.
The unchecked spread of health misinformation during the Covid-19 pandemic undermined public trust and contributed to preventable deaths. Unregulated digital platforms can amplify pseudoscience, promote unverified health interventions and target users with harmful content – without accountability.
Meanwhile, AI tools are deployed in health care with minimal oversight, leading to possibly inaccurate diagnoses, reinforcing systemic biases or increasing cybersecurity risks. The rapid commercialisation of health data, often without informed consent, poses ethical and privacy risks, particularly in low- and middle-income countries, where regulatory safeguards are weakest.
Why the G7 must lead
G7 members have the world’s most developed health systems. They also host many of the largest technology firms and vast health data infrastructures, and drive a significant portion of global health research. They have both the responsibility and capacity to act. The European Union is home to innovative legislation to ensure data protection and regulate digital services and platforms.
A coordinated G7 approach to digital health platform regulation would serve three goals. First, it would safeguard users, ensuring platforms do no harm and uphold core public health principles. Second, it would prevent regulatory fragmentation, enabling innovation to flourish within clear, ethical guardrails. And third, it would offer a model for global cooperation, especially crucial for countries with inadequate resources to regulate powerful tech platforms.
The G7 should develop a joint policy framework with minimum standards for the safety, transparency and accountability of digital health platforms. This includes mandatory disclosures about health algorithms, limits on data extraction and protocols for moderating health-related misinformation.
Second, G7 members should fund and promote public-interest alternatives – open-source digital health tools, equitable telehealth platforms and robust digital infrastructure in underserved regions. These investments must prioritise inclusion and sustainability.
Third, the G7 should partner with global institutions such as the World Health Organization and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development to support shared governance mechanisms, including international observatories to monitor platform practices and regulatory sandboxes to test digital innovations.
Finally, any regulatory agenda must require public engagement. Building digital health literacy, involving civil society and embedding rights-based approaches are essential to creating a digital health ecosystem that people can trust. Digital health must serve everyone, regardless of geography, income, age or ability.
Pave the way for a global compact
The G7 would thus pave the way for a Global Compact on Digital Health Governance – a voluntary yet normative framework of shared principles, responsibilities and cooperative mechanisms for managing digital health technologies and health data across borders. It would help ensure equity, trust, safety and public benefit, and protect individual rights, and advance equity, resilience and trust in health systems worldwide. It would guide ethical and equitable digital health development, ensure international cooperation on cross-border digital health challenges and empower countries, especially in the Global South, with capacity and safeguards.
It could build on existing efforts by the WHO, OECD, Global Digital Compact, African Union Digital Health Strategy and the EU’s AI and data protection frameworks, as well as the International Health Regulations, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the Convention on the Rights of the Child.
It could also establish a multilateral platform to develop the global compact by reaching out to the G20 and including regional bodies as well as international organisations. Importantly, it would establish digital health observatories to track deployments, harms and innovations, to share best practices, benchmarks and impact assessments, and to provide technical support and peer-review mechanisms. Supporting such observatories could attract major philanthropies.
A turning point for global health
The G7 must help prepare the world for the future. It can no longer neglect the global impact – political, economic, social and health – of the digital transformation. It must recognise the global public health implications of inaction. It can choose to set a responsible and inclusive course for the digital future of health. Regulating digital health platforms is not about stifling innovation. It is about ensuring that innovation serves people – equitably, ethically and safely.
