Introduction

In our opening chapter, we said that one of the first concerns for any community will be whether a novel technology is safe, whether it presents any risk to human health or safety, or to the environment (the integrity of which is, of course, essential for human health and well-being). There is nothing noble about such concerns; they are entirely self-serving prudential concerns; but, because these are concerns that are common to all humans with the instinct for survival, they are not controversial in themselves. To some extent, individuals can take their own protective measures – for example, an individual who is worried about the safety of washing machines or tumble-dryers might simply hand-wash and hang clothes out to dry in the traditional way; or, a consumer might check the labelling on foods to avoid any GM products – but there are limits to how far such protective steps can be taken. Where individuals are employed in workplaces that are equipped with machines, where getting from A to B involves an encounter with road traffic, and so on, it is not reasonably practicable to conduct one’s life in a way that maintains a safe distance from industrial and transport technologies. Accordingly, it falls to regulators to protect the public against technologies that give rise to safety concerns; and the challenge of regulatory prudence is essentially one of reducing risk to an acceptable level.

Reviewing the regulatory response to a range of technologies that were developed in the previous two centuries, Susan Brenner has suggested that regulators have tended to focus on two forms of harmful use: defective implementation and (intentional) misuse. Consider, for example, the case of the motor car. The cars that come off the production lines today bear some resemblance to the cars that were first manufactured by Henry Ford. Functionally, the cars of Henry Ford’s time, like the cars of today, facilitate travel. More importantly, from a regulatory perspective, in the wrong hands, the cars of both periods are extremely dangerous, being capable of causing death, personal injury, and damage to property. Dealing with intentional misuse (dealing with those drivers who are minded to cause harm to others) is rightly a regulatory priority. When it comes to the safety and design of motor cars, however, the differences between the early cars and today’s smart cars are more obvious.