Why aren't we talking about Corporate Digital Responsibility?

Why aren't we talking about Corporate Digital Responsibility?

These same ideas grew in importance with industrialization and technological development. Companies had to be more than good employers, and they started worrying about contributing to economic development, to the communities they were part of and to society at large. Governments, in turn, took an interest in regulating the relationship between private organizations and society, prompted by a long stretch of time in which the use of resources, labor and profits had not matched the legal and ethical standards expected. Every person had to be treated in accordance with human rights.

Some years ago, most of society's organizations coined and took on Corporate Social Responsibility, a concept that can be traced back to ancient Greece, whose guiding principles were philanthropy and charity.

So those values and levels of transparency took shape and began setting guidelines for society as a whole, taking the economic, social and development perspectives into account. All of it started to matter more: stricter regulations appeared, along with commitments from companies themselves on people's rights, care for the environment, health and the public interest. Commitments that had to be met through frameworks, internal policies or agreements with the authorities

From there, organizations began a long road to adjust their policies, manage their resources properly and act with social responsibility toward their surroundings. Today that work is easier, with countless quality standards focused on different aspects: protecting the environment, labor rights, respect for human rights, among others. It is worth noting here that companies want to stand out from one another in how they handle these issues, so their customers or users can judge which company commits more seriously.

Digital development

Since the World Economic Forum coined the term, the fourth industrial revolution has produced a high degree of development in new services and innovative solutions, including robotics, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning, the internet of things (IoT), quantum computing, autonomous vehicles and biotechnology, among others.

These changes have driven a dramatic increase in the amount of information organizations hold. For several countries this has enabled sustained economic growth, but for others the technological revolution does not translate -directly- into faster-growing economies. Developing countries in particular do not have the tools they need to benefit from these technologies. Among the reasons are a shortage of trained staff, a lack of access to technology, and a lack of public policy that would allow those technologies to be identified and reached.

One important point appears in the report Digital technologies for a new future from the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (CEPAL), which states that the dimensions of digital development will lie in new production and business models, but that at the same time these create greater risks tied to inequality, lower competitiveness, economic concentration and geopolitical polarization.

All these factors will directly affect wellbeing, productivity and sustainability. So if these risk factors are already visible, what could companies do to make one of the guiding principles of Corporate Social Responsibility -contributing to economic development- hold true in this new reality?

The answer is simple and categorical: organizations have to start carrying Corporate Digital Responsibility in their DNA

Concept, usefulness and future

How could this new responsibility be defined? International authors define it as “the set of shared values and norms guiding an organization's operations with respect to four main processes related to digital technology and data. These processes are the creation of technology and capture of data, operation and decision making, inspection and impact assessment, and refinement.”.

The definition seems to cover every current area of the economy, and rightly so: every organization operates within a complex system that is directly tied to technology. Year by year, countries have begun to regulate all these processes and technologies more directly. Specific laws on data, privacy, cybersecurity, cyberdefense, consumer rights and others have started to take shape.

But where does the need for lawmakers to safeguard it come from? These rights are part of the Human Rights enshrined by the United Nations. In fact, they matter so much that the United Nations has stated that “[...] people's data has been exploited and there has been a rush to introduce various technologies that invade privacy without assessing their effectiveness or repercussions.[...] Such acts not only threaten the privacy of millions of people, they are also the gateway to the violation of other rights”, adding that “new technologies are too often used to undermine those rights, especially those of the most vulnerable and disadvantaged, through, for example, surveillance, repression, censorship or online harassment

The concern should also sit with the organizations that create and use technologies, and not only with the governments or international bodies that set the general rules of shared life.

These international statements make it clear that we are facing an ethical dilemma, one that shows up in how organizations handle the information they hold about their users, the technology they use and the business they do with that information. Greater access to information, to innovation and even to funding by a select group in society produces greater inequality.

The real value of Corporate Digital Responsibility (CDR), even though no law in Chile requires it, is that companies can create the space for people to know more about technology, how it is used, and how to manage their data. All of that would let better-informed people make better decisions, not only about choosing companies that actively run CDR processes, but also about being active participants in technological change.

Inside organizations there could also be changes that bring benefits. Employees would know what their rights are, there would be higher standards for building products with people at the center, explanations would be clear, and running the business would therefore carry sustainable value as a result of better use of technology.

Decision makers, for their part, need to be aware of how important it is for society to be digitally responsible. The community as a whole can develop properly if digital work, the responsible use of technology and its development are encouraged.

Finally, from a business perspective, starting to take steps to make organizations digitally responsible will be a positive differentiator for people. It is not reasonable for the case made for new businesses (particularly in the startup world) to overlook the essential, strategic value of being digitally responsible.

We haven't talked about Corporate Digital Responsibility because society as a whole hasn't asked for it. But given how fast business and technology change, those who commit to developing it and make it an essential part of their organizations stand to benefit, just as happens today with Corporate Social Responsibility. That one has stopped being simply a way for companies to mitigate the harm they cause, and has become a real differentiator for end users.