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

As more and more essential services and activities move online, people have less and less of a choice about whether or not to participate in the digital world. Yet expanded internet use can bring with it increased risk.

Currently, unprecedented levels of investment in digital equity and broadband deployment via the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA) hold the promise of “internet for all,” but a core tenet must be ensuring that new and vulnerable users are safe. While internet connectivity expands opportunity and opens doors to civic and social forums, it also compels users to agree to processes and terms they often don’t understand, while at the same time dodging scams and shielding personal information from theft and misuse.

In this report, we offer recommendations to state and territory broadband offices regarding what they can do to mitigate the potential harms of an increasingly digital life, especially as they roll out programs funded by the IIJA’s Digital Equity Capacity Grant Program. These include:

• What actions broadband offices can undertake to build safety into program administration, for example:
  • Risk assessments;
  • Device and software standards;
  • Data policies;
  • Procurement of safety and virus protection applications and tools; and
  • Governance standards for use of artificial intelligence tools for administrative and programmatic purposes.
• What design principles for safety and cybersecurity programs and projects broadband offices can implement, for example:
  • Prioritization of tech workforce programs that build job pipelines for marginalized and vulnerable communities, who best understand the experience of those communities;
  • Investments in holistic training and community support solutions to shift the burden of protection away from individuals and toward collective solutions;
  • Establishment of programs that go beyond password basics to address social media safety, targeted fraud and harassment, and the embarrassment and shame that can come with exploitation; and
  • Incorporation of digital safety measures into subgrant programs to ensure safety across a range of digital skills and internet uses.

As states and territories develop implementation strategies for their digital equity plans and Capacity Grant–funded programs, the recommendations offered here can help them deliver on one of the five required measurable objectives: “Awareness of, and the use of, measures to secure the online privacy of, and cybersecurity with respect to, an individual.”

However, the Digital Equity Act and implementation of its programs alone won’t be enough. Any effort undertaken in this context must be supplemented by a broad and pervasive structural reform effort on the parts of lawmakers, civil society, and relevant agencies. Otherwise, the harms that accompany internet use could undercut every benefit that equitable broadband is supposed to provide.