These are the very same people who do not have equal opportunities to enjoy financial stability, health or the right to interact and co-exist with all members of the global community. Their exclusion is not by choice but by circumstance.
Today, there are 2 billion people unbanked across the globe. They lack stable financial status and cannot access to low cost credit or capital. They are likely to fall victim to usury – paying high interest on loans, so less able to pull themselves out of poverty.
Lack of access to the Internet and lacking digital literacy means individuals are excluded from the right to basic opportunities that others take for granted. Being unconnected, whether for lack of infrastructure or lack of affordable Internet, means:
- No access to the benefits of digital health. Individuals who live in remote regions or are impoverished are the ones with the greatest need for access to digital health in the absence of local and/or affordable medical care. Those who are unconnected also lack access to tools, information and people who can improve their care.
- Very limited access to government services. There has been increase in governments around the world providing access to benefit information via the Internet.
- Very limited access to employment opportunities. Many job opportunities are promoted online and require individuals to complete applications via online.
- And the list can go on.
Half of the world’s population without access to the Internet directly impacts financial opportunity for local economies, creates social imbalance and increases the risk of public health crises.
Building Agency and Trust is Essential As We Expand the Internet
Although we want to expand Internet access to the unconnected, there is an equally greater challenge impacting both the connected and the underserved. The 50% of the world’s population on the Internet means that 3.6 billion people are exposed to the potential of becoming a victim of a data breach, identity fraud, or exploitation. When the remaining 50% of the population are connected, there will be double the number of potential victims. As it stands today no digital citizen can protect or defend against a data breach, essentially an invasion of his/her digital persona. Therefore, if we as a community are eager to give the right for all to be digital included, should we not be equally as eager to protect it? Should we not be able to select with whom we want to transact? The right to be forgotten online and offline? The ability to protect our digital persona?
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers Standards Association (IEEE-SA) has launched the Digital Inclusion through Trust and Agency Industry Connections program to bring together subject matter experts to recommend frameworks for solutions and guidelines to affront the fundamental challenges facing all digital citizens (the connected and the unconnected). The program seeks to create a roadmap combining technology, process, and policy to enable a digital citizen to have agency over their digital persona while establishing trust frameworks to restore dignity to transactions between individuals and entities. Simultaneously the program seeks to identify solutions to connect the digitally excluded and integrate them into the digital universe with the ability to have trust in and agency of their digital citizenship.
For more information about the IEEE Digital Inclusion through Trust and Agency initiative, please write to m.palombini@ieee.org or see the website.