Digital safety is a growing concern among experts and lawmakers, and among those surveyed for state digital equity planning efforts. Digital risk impacts everyone who interacts directly with internet-enabled devices as well as those exploited, marginalized, or surveilled by algorithmic and data-dependent systems.

My latest research examines the tensions between the goals of:

1. Expanding universal broadband access, adoption, and use to provide equal digital opportunity for all, while protecting the free and open internet; and
2. Addressing the spread of fraud, cybercrime, and digital abuse, along with unchecked and unregulated expansion of inequitable application of surveillance, predictive algorithmic systems, and other risks and harms that accompany emerging technologies.

Fully addressing the spectrum of risks that accompany internet use will require a far broader effort than what is possible under the Digital Equity Act and the programs it supports. However, it is imperative that the current investments support safety for beneficiaries—and do not undercut or contradict efforts to reduce exposure to digital harms.

During a series of interviews conducted with leading practitioners working on digital safety with historically marginalized populations, several common themes emerged:

• Digital safety is a social, interpersonal, and community issue, and the most effective measures to build awareness and protect people from harm emerge in social and community settings;
• There is an urgent need for institutions—not just internet users, individuals, or policy beneficiaries—to review and update their protocols and practices in view of increased risk, given the volume of sensitive information on individuals they hold;
• Many tech developers, officials, and policymakers are not aware of the societal context of vulnerable internet users. This points towards a need for collaboration with community representatives to fully explore and develop urgently needed solutions;
• The people disproportionately exposed to fraud as well as wide-net surveillance and algorithmic bias due to membership in particular population groups—including most Covered Populations—are far more likely to be overwhelmed by and distrustful of technology than others; and
• The societal impact of digital privacy issues is much broader than the risk to individuals, encompassing systemic risk at many levels including damage to social and civic institutions as well as clear danger to our national financial and democratic health.

My research points to four critical considerations for administering entities in view of the breadth, range, and variety of risk vectors for new, vulnerable, and traditionally marginalized groups.

1. Digital Equity Program Design Principles: Establish tenets for building DEA Capacity and Competitive Grant training programs and campaigns that invest in holistic and culturally aware training and community support solutions.

2. Workforce, Pipeline, and Capacity Development Programs: To expand the range of informed and culturally relevant safety support resources available, invest in and support training and employment of safety experts from vulnerable groups.

3. Procurement and Grantmaking Standards: Administering entities have a duty of care to protect beneficiaries as well as organizational sub-awardees in Digital Equity Act-funded programs and activities. Implementing these programs themselves will involve many risk vectors, including the security of devices, software, and databases. Administering Entities may adopt standards governing these factors and pass them down to contractors and prospective grantees.

4. Evaluation and Scoring: Available research methods to gauge safety and security among a population are often a reflection of sentiment—that is, the feeling that people have about safety or lack thereof. As U.S. states and territories rapidly compile digital equity data and Digital Equity Act programs mature, we have a critical opportunity to develop scoring and impact metrics in this category of digital equity barriers.

Amid an unprecedented effort to expand connectivity and adoption, it is imperative to ensure that those entering the digital world are meaningfully protected from the internet’s downside. For broader impact on sustainability and on areas affected by meaningful internet adoption, such as health care, education, and workforce development, the DEA’s public funding opportunity should be supplemented with catalytic investments from philanthropy and the private sector. Along with the public sector, philanthropy has an opportunity right now to invest in effective programs to build future-ready safety awareness, tools, and practices.

If this opportunity is not considered carefully, the Digital Equity Act’s unprecedented expansion of digital access could also, paradoxically, open its beneficiaries up to unprecedented risk and harm, and even undercut the laudable intention of digital equity and inclusion efforts.

See Building Safety Into Digital Inclusion Efforts: Risks and Opportunities in the Digital Equity Act

Greta Byrum is a 2023-2024 Marjorie & Charles Benton Opportunity Fund Fellow.

As a leader in digital equity and community wireless networking, Greta has worked in digital equity and internet policy since 2011. For seven years, she led tech policy and community engagement projects at New America as director of the resilient communities program and director of field operations for the Open Technology Institute. She built Resilient Networks at New America, a $4 million post-Hurricane Sandy partnership with the New York City Economic Development Corporation, the Department of Housing and Urban Development, philanthropic organizations, and community-based organizations.

Greta went on to found Community Tech NY, a nonprofit working with community digital stewards to build storm-resilient community Wi-Fi in New York City, Detroit, and rural Tennessee. She co-founded and built the Digital Equity Lab at the New School with civil rights leader Maya Wiley; and set up and launched the $12 million Just Tech Program for the Social Science Research Council, a fellowship and platform dedicated to imagining and creating more just and equitable technological futures.

Greta currently serves as a principal for HR&A Advisors with a focus on broadband, digital equity, and emerging technologies.

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