An expert’s view
When scandals
When scandals
shatter trust:
We need Corporate
Digital Respon-
sibility more than
ever before
- Sharing vacation memories on social media, managing accounts efficiently with an app, and conveniently controlling home electronics through voice-controlled assistants: today, digital technologies are part of everyday life. But they also show that users who divulge sensitive information are making their private lives transparent. As they can’t check what companies do with data in their data centers, they have no option but to give their trust. The digital economy is a trust economy.
- However, this trust has been severely shaken in the past: millions of people have been affected by the illegal disclosure of their data by Facebook. Investigation committees are looking into allegations of election rigging through social media platforms. Hate comments on the Internet have led to new regulations, such as the Network Enforcement Act, which require social media platforms to delete illegal content more quickly. This raises the question of how to regain lost trust, and how to minimize such dangers in the future. In other words, if data is the new oil, we must explore which regulatory frameworks and safeguards are needed to prevent any more damage. We must take a two-pronged approach to answering this: on the one hand, legislation is needed. So we should celebrate the fact that many countries have adapted their competition laws to the newly emerging digital markets in recent years. The General Data Protection Regulation has updated data protection law for the European Union. Another question under discussion is what measures can be used to prevent the abuse of algorithms - and whether companies that wield power in the market ought to be regulated and supervised as infrastructure services are.
On the other hand, business must take action. Many companies have shown through their CSR activities over recent years that they are not just the cause of problems. They can also contribute to solving problems, for example environmental issues. However, the more online business models and offerings they use, the more responsibility they have to assume for their impact on the digital world. This means extend ing traditional CSR activities in environmental, social affairs and human rights areas to include corporate digital responsibility, i.e. digital responsibility.
The UN Guidelines on Consumer Protection are one source that describes the issues involved. With regard to corporate digital responsibility, the following issues need to be addressed:
If data is the new oil, we must explore which regulatory frameworks and safeguards are needed to prevent any more damage.
Access
- Companies should campaign for better Internet access. Right now, over half of the world’s population has none.
Economic interests
- Companies should respect and promote principles such as net neutrality and the neutrality of search results. They should not personalize pricing. And they should also be open about how algorithms make decisions and ensure that these are not discriminative.
Liability
- At the moment there are legal gray areas concerning decision-making by autonomous systems, where liability for mistakes is unclear. Companies should therefore introduce user-friendly liability regimes.
Data privacy and security
- The General Data Protection Regulation has established new rules for processing data. Companies have to interpret these rules not only with a view to their own duties, but also in the users’ interest. These include user-friendly options for giving consent, easy-to-understand information about stored data (e.g. through dashboards) or promoting innovative technical approaches to data privacy (such as privacy bots).
Mediation
- Conflicts can arise any time between providers and users during everyday business transactions. Smart Contracts, i. e. self-executing contracts that trigger automated legal consequences, offer users an efficient way of pursuing their rights when a company has not met its obligations, without having to fill out a lot of forms first.
This list shows that companies have to manage a whole range of subjects if they want to live up to their digital responsibilities. However, corporate digital responsibility is still in its infancy. A look at sustainability reports from the top DAX 30 companies reveals that very few companies to date have been developing strategies for digital responsibility. This inaction must end. This is the only way users will really be able to trust digital offerings.