Brookings Institution

The connectivity and services built by information capitalists have become too important to be left any longer without public participation in determining the rules they follow. Critical nature of these digital services warrants public interest representation in decisions about their practices. Here are four ideas to incorporate public participation in establishing the rules for the critical services of the information era:

On April 10, Apple and Google announced their response to the call for digital contact tracing, which would involve subscribers voluntarily downloading an app. While it is seemingly clear that widespread contact tracing and surveillance can help identify coronavirus cases and possible hot spots for new and recurring infections, several questions remain. The first one is related to the security and anonymity of one’s personal data.

In Louisville (KY), most households have access to broadband and pay for a subscription, but neither is universal. The story of Louisville is one of identifying existing resources, building relationships, and continually planning for the next step. In 2017, Louisville released a Digital Inclusion Plan referring to “fiber deserts” in neighborhoods in west and southwest Louisville, which also have the city’s highest unemployment rates. The Digital Inclusion Plan identified lack of technology access and use as an issue that must be addressed.

Infrastructure workers were essential long before COVID-19, but their economic importance has come into greater focus during the crisis and is beginning to shape the response, too. Just as our infrastructure systems require generational investment, so too do our infrastructure workers. Beyond protecting essential workers right now, there are enormous concerns over who will fill these jobs in the months and years to come. Policymakers have traditionally viewed infrastructure jobs in terms of construction projects.

As part of a larger project around digital equity, we visited Texas’s Brownsville-Harlingen metropolitan area, a community with low rates of broadband adoption and spotty service. We can look to this community to better understand the opportunities for overcoming barriers to broadband adoption. Leaders in the region—including the city manager, the head of the Brownsville Community Improvement Corporation, and representatives from local health and housing centers—all know that to improve economic conditions, they need to increase broadband penetration, adoption, and use.

Between Jan 29 (shortly after COVID-19 appeared in the US) and March 26 there was a 105% spike in people active online at home between 9:00 am and 6:00 pm. So why hasn’t the internet ground to a halt? The answer lies in the lessons of Mother’s Day and freeway traffic jams.