Covid-19 and the Digital Economy - Broadband Commission
In the face of the Covid-19 lockdowns around the world, our work, education and social lives have never been more online
Around the world, workers at home are replacing physical meetings with online video conferencing and messaging. But more teleworking and online conferencing is raising security concerns. People working from home often have fewer security defenses in their home networks than they would have at their work places. There have been rising incidents of coronavirus phishing scams since January 2020.
Digital tools and online trainings allow teachers to stay in contact with their students. However, the capacity of students to benefit from remote teaching may be unequal due to different home-based access to Internet connectivity, different capacities of parents to support the children, as well as various levels of preparedness of schools.
There has been a shift to electronic commerce over physical retail and service provision. Chinese online retailer, JD.com, reports online grocery sales grew 215% year over year to 15,000 tons during a 10-day period between late January and early February. Amazon has reportedly been hiring 100,000 warehouse workers to meet surging demand. Another area that has seen a spike in demand is movie streaming, putting pressure on the broadband networks of cities and countries.
Social media platforms, such as Twitter, Facebook and WeChat, are increasingly used as sources of information on the crisis and as a way of staying in touch. On the downside, while social networks are very useful for information exchange, there are also the source of misinformation in the form of “fake news”.
But gaps/ risks implicit in the digital economy are more exposed by Covid-19
In the context of the gig economy, many “workers” lack proper labour protection and will vulnerable to slowdown in economic activity due to the coronavirus.
The coronavirus crisis also underlines the need to review the privacy and data protection debate from a new angle. Digital technologies can, for example, help to track the expansion of the virus and trace contacts of affected people. The challenge is to find the middle ground between data privacy and the need for individual data for disease monitoring. If governments choose to loosen data privacy regulations, it may be appropriate to do so on an exceptional and temporary basis, with the specific objective of fighting the disease
UNCTAD E-Trade Readiness Assessments in LDCs show significant gaps– ranging from ICT infrastructure and payment solutions to skills and legal frameworks – that must be overcome to benefit from the digital economy in the time of Corona. For example, quality and affordable broadband– especially in rural areas –have to be enhanced to take advantage of the online conferencing services.
Changes in behavior resulting from the COVID-19 crisis are likely to have lasting effects also when the economy starts to pick up. We should begin preparing now.
As more people and organizations get used to relying on digital solutions, they can be expected to continue using them to a greater extent than pre-crisis.
