UK's essential services websites must prevent digital exclusion
The Digital Poverty Alliance estimates that 11 million UK adults lack digital life skills or equipment.
The Digital Poverty Alliance (DPA), a coalition of charities aiming to ensure everyone can access online resources, has called for website and app design to be regulated, to avoid digital exclusion among the millions of individuals in the UK who struggle with online life.
The DPA says 'basic, inclusive design requirements must be enforced for all essential services.' Essential services include things like booking NHS appointments and paying for car parking: services that are increasingly being moved to online-only.
The group estimates that 11 million Britons lack digital life skills or equipment, and face difficulties performing these tasks online.
As well as pushing for better accessibility, the DPA is urging tech firms to offer devices with operating systems that will remain updated for longer; affordable 'social tariffs' from all broadband providers; and the classification of digital access as an 'essential utility'.
The DPA's vision is 'to live in a world which enables everyone to access the life changing benefits that digital brings.' It aims to end digital poverty once and for all by 2030.
The latest appeal from the DPA comes after warnings from frontline advisors that an increasing number of individuals are feeling 'lost in a digital environment'.
According to Age UK, 40% of those over 75 don't use the internet: a rising problem with the UK's ageing population.
The number of individuals who solely use their mobile phones to access the internet doubled between 2019 and 2021, according to a study by socialist group the Fabian Society. Mobile internet service tends to be slower, more expensive and less efficient at handling complicated online transactions versus desktop or laptop access.
The Fabian Society study, supported by BT, found that nearly 5.8 million homes now depend on mobile coverage, requiring families to ration their online time.
"We should regard digital access in the same way we regard other utilities," said Lord Knight, a former Labour schools minister who chairs the DPA.
"You can't apply for jobs, you can't get discounts on your bills, you fall further into debt and end up becoming much more isolated. It is reasonable that we should have a standard that public sector websites should meet."
IT is "a constant struggle," according to 86-year-old Glasgow blogger Joyce Williams.
She complained that there are "too many passwords" to remember, and regular software updates means there is disruption in services she had learned to use.
Martin Garrod, 64, an accountant who is now retired and lives in Portsmouth, said he is unable to receive software updates for his computer because the system needs text messages to authenticate his identification, and he does not own a mobile phone.
The problem is not limited to the older end of the population. Last year, senior public figures in the UK wrote to Prime Minister Boris Johnson, urging him to help hundreds of thousands of students on 'the wrong side of the digital divide' by providing them with the devices and internet connection they lacked for remote learning during the pandemic.
The letter, co-ordinated by Labour MP Siobhain McDonagh, referred to the data from the Office for National Statistics, which showed that only half of UK households earning between £6,000 and £10,000 have internet access.
Chris Philp, a minister in the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, told Parliament last week that the Government was committed to create a world-leading digital economy that works for everyone.
"A range of low-cost social tariffs are available to those on universal credit, and a number specifically include individuals on pension credit," he said.
"Public libraries play an important role in tackling digital exclusion. About 2,900 public libraries in England provide a trusted network of accessible locations with staff, volunteers, free wifi, public PCs, and assisted digital access to a wide range of digital services."
This glosses over the fact that 800 public libraries closed between 2010, when the Conservative Party first took power, and 2019 - the last date for which figures are available.