Letter to the editor. Answer: SVT excludes the elderly from being able to watch television

In the debate about mandatory login to SVT Play, Sveriges Televison's communications manager Hanna Dowling writes that SVT cannot build a good enough app without logged in users. SVT needs to understand how the public uses the service and which functions it appreciates.

However, statistics about which programs are played and which functions are used can be collected even without personal user accounts. Measuring the use of a service is not the same as identifying its users. And if logging in is really necessary to develop a good enough service, why should it still be optional on the web?

SVT describes the advantages of personal recommendations, viewing history and the possibility of discovering new programmes. It is certainly excellent for many. But why force all these features on users who neither need nor want them? And above all: Why make a functioning service more difficult for the elderly to use?

My mother-in-law is over 90 years old. She can't create an account, manage email, or log in with one-time codes. She simply cannot log in and therefore cannot use SVT Play. If she is also logged out, help from a relative is required, just so she can continue watching. So it's not about logging in being a bit awkward or taking longer. For her, this means that SVT Play becomes unavailable.

DN has previously drawn attention to how the elderly have problems with bank IDs and thus risk being shut out of important social services. The national organization of pensioners has warned that digitization is going too fast and that there are no viable alternatives. It is strange that SVT, with its special public service mission, now chooses to go in the same direction.

SVT believes that logging in should give the audience a better service. But who will the service benefit from if some viewers can no longer use it?

Let anyone who wants a personalized experience log in. But let those who just want to watch TV continue to do so without an account.