The digital divide affects one in three citizens and the administration must guarantee their social rights.
Way back in the early 1990s, I was one of the pioneers to urge the government to provide as many online services as possible. But has this now created a two-tier society where certain strata of society are being left out and dependant on others to carry out mundane tasks online?
The following is what is happening in Spain with respect to certain people who are being let out of the digitalisation movement. It could be an eye- opener for Malta not to repeat the same mistakes.
In Valencia, a signature campaign was launched by a respected elderly urologist to demand personal attention in bank branches and this has had an unusual social impact.
“I am almost 80 years old and it saddens me a lot to see that banks have forgotten about the elderly like me. Now, almost everything is online,” began the petition of this urologist and surgeon that already has more than 350,000 signatures on the digital platform Change.org.
The strong and rapid support received by this initiative shows a growing demand by a part of society that does not demand anything too subversive: not to be left aside by financial institutions when capturing their small savings has already lost interest for them in the face of the low price of money.
Tens of thousands of people have felt reflected in this initiative, ‘I’m older, but not an idiot’, and are probably just a part of the many more queuing outside bank branches still open, waiting to be served in reduced time slots or asking strangers for help paying a bill through the ATM.
The problem does not only affect banks. The latest report by Caritas and the Foessa Foundation in Spain indicates that the digital divide has become a new factor of social exclusion; a kind of illiteracy of the 21st century that the COVID-19 pandemic and the accelerated process of digitalisation have intensified in almost all areas of daily life.
In Valencia, a campaign was launched by an elderly urologist to demand personal attention in bank branches- Philip Micallef
Thirty-five per cent of the population – that is, one in three citizens – feels affected by what is called a digital blackout. The expression designates not only the fact of not having the appropriate instruments (sufficiently competent mobiles, for example) but also lacking an adequate connection or the necessary skills to handle them.
Seventeen per cent of households in Spain with severe exclusion manifest have lost opportunities for employment, training or even aid due to poor internet connection. This is not the case in Malta where good broadband connection is available in Malta and Gozo.
The issue with Malta could be access affordability. This gap could intensify in the coming years in the face of a recovery model that puts digitalisation at the centre of economic and social life and is one of the government’s priorities in its strategy to transform and improve productivity.
The necessary process of digitisation must protect both those who are less familiar and those who are excluded from access to a good connection and a suitable mobile phone. The public sector at all levels must preserve face-to-face services that facilitate administrative, medical, economic or legal procedures for as long as necessary, and, in that sense, the period of one month that the government has given to banks to solve the problems of face-to-face attention detected.
Digitalisation as a space of comfort for the new generations should not be the flip side of the anguish of those who cannot, do not want to or do not know how to manage in the digital sphere.
Philip Micallef is a former executive chairperson of MCA, chief executive Bermuda Regulatory Authority, CEO Melita Cable, CEO Air Malta, CEO Malta Enterprise, and C+Executive Olivetti and Orange Business Services.