Digital

The digital revolution has already hit the world and businesses. With the advent of the internet, the infrastructure of the global digitized society is here to stay. While the use of digital technology has underpinned our societies and democracies, it has also played a crucial role in intensifying security vulnerabilities and threats to a nation. This is where it becomes obvious that as we harness modern technology, the governance of these technologies must be executed.

The rapid adoption of digital technology and digitalization means that everything individuals do can now be tracked and supervised by both public and private sector businesses. This significantly presents a broad range of challenges to governing digitalization and threats to human rights and the right to privacy. In this context, the governments’ role becomes imperative. They should play a proactive role in the use of technology, data, and optimization of the process of decision-making and the related outcomes.

There are various perspectives have been raised concerning how the process of digitalization might be governed. Many national governments have taken crucial steps and diverging strategies to govern emerging technologies including big data, artificial intelligence, and blockchain. Despite considered the most promising and disruptive digital technologies, they profoundly impact humans’ lives and economic activities. 

Internet Governance

As internet users are continuously growing, it demands robust governance of the internet. Internet governance is policies, standards, norms, and practices that govern the technical layers of the internet itself, at the architectural/hardware layer or the naming, numbering protocol/software layer. The animating energy within the internet’s founding governance community was open, multistakeholder, and merit-based. The purpose behind it was to create a reliable, globally interoperable mode of instantaneous communication available to anyone who could connect. The community would converge upon the technical solutions that garnered the most support. With the creation of the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN), a significant innovation in internet governance took place in 1998. 

When it comes to governance on the internet, in June 2012, the first UN resolution on internet freedom was passed by consensus at the UN Human Rights Council. This resolution set the foundational concept that human rights need to be protected online as they are offline.

According to an article published on the World Economic Forum, we must do three things, in particular. First, scrutinize business models and algorithms that amplify extreme points of view for the sake of generating engagement and revenue. Second, ensure digital platforms are open and foster innovation across the economy. Finally, determine how much control we are willing to cede to autonomous systems and artificial intelligence – and that humans, not machines, ultimately bear responsibility and can be held accountable. 

Nonetheless, digitalization is undoubtedly changing our society by the use of digital technology and increased connectivity. It will significantly improve the likelihood of society and business. But it also stimulates crucial changes that need to be addressed. Robust tech governance strategies are a must to cope with major challenges and consequences of digitalization.