Teleworking and the digital breach

Teleworking and the digital breach

The current pandemic caused by the Covid-19 that we are currently experiencing has caused companies to implement telework since this form of work allows companies to continue economic activity safely for their workers. The health problems we have had have caused this telework system to be implemented immediately, a system that many companies never considered.

There are all kinds of scenarios since there are many entities that either did not contemplate this modality or did not have adequate planning.

Also, the extensions of the State of Alarm have helped companies to make a more paused reflection of this system and thus be able to implement a teleworking that from the point of view of privacy and taking into account the current regulations on data protection, see the RGPD and the LOPDGDD, help workers and do not violate the rules.

Since it is a system that is constantly changing and has never existed as such, in this article we will delve into the digital divide, how it affects teleworking and how this modality protects workers.

WHAT IS THE DIGITAL BREACH?

When we talk about the Digital Divide, we are referring to information and communication technologies “ICT”. This concept implies a problem in the situation that has caused the Covid-19 and the implementation of teleworking, since this gap creates an inequality between people who may have more knowledge in the field of new technologies and those who have less or do not know it.

While it is true that with the passage of time the world is becoming more digital and this involves understanding the language of new technologies, but the consequence of teleworking has subjected us to immediate digitization, this measure causes consequences, such as “depriving” to some extent the citizenry of essential resources for development as many workers have difficulties in teleworking.

HOW DOES IT AFFECT TELEWORKING?

As we have mentioned as a result of the health crisis, teleworking has become an essential tool for workers, since it is the only way to continue with activities and not to have an economic standstill. But for this system to work there should not be a digital divide, on the contrary, all workers should have the necessary tools to be able to tackle teleworking in a satisfactory way.

Besides taking into account that workers have all the necessary mechanisms to develop teleworking, they must also have the power to control their working time, so that they are effective in their tasks.

Also, the above would be the ideal situation, but the reality is that not everyone has the tools or training to integrate into this new form of remote work, is at that time that comes into play the digital divide that gives rise to this discrimination by not having a large number of the population access to sufficient information.

SOLUTIONS TO PROTECT WORKERS

With regard to this situation that we have been commenting, we have seen the need to implement solutions to help citizens who have difficulty adapting to this new reality, so much so that the UN includes in its Sustainable Development Goals (ODS 9), has developed certain measures to reduce this situation;

• Literacy programs, whose objective is to teach those people who do not know the concept of Internet, are not familiar with new technologies or do not have enough tools.
• A project, called “A4AI”, led by several governments, which aims to reduce the cost of broadband in specific areas.
• Free Basics is an idea that has been taken up by large companies, including Facebook, whose objective is to be able to access the Internet for free through an application,
• Starlink, a project whose objective is to launch satellites into space to provide internet coverage to the whole world at a lower cost.