Accelerated by the COVID-19 pandemic, the influence of digitalization on daily life and our dependence on digital technology have continued to increase rapidly. Mobile working, digital classrooms, online shopping, video streaming, contactless payments, virtual parties, fitness apps, COVID-19 alert apps, digital vaccination certificates and e-health services. Not only is data digital, but our lives themselves have become largely digital.
At the same time, the expanding use of digital technologies by corporations is leading to public discussions that go beyond data privacy and security issues. Other aspects of concern range from surveillance, transparency, profiling, manipulation of opinion and behaviors, automated decision making, bias, discrimination by algorithmic systems, to autonomous systems and existential risk from AI.
Yet, as Prof. Melvin Kranzberg stated in his six laws of technology (Kranzberg, M. (1986). Technology and History: “Kranzberg’s Laws.” Technology and Culture, 27(3), 544–560.) already in 1985: Technology as such is neither good nor bad. Technology is a very human activity because it’s what we do with it that makes the difference.
Since technology is usually designed, developed and distributed en masse by companies, companies need to think about how they may benefit from technological advances, but also what consequences this can have for the world around them.
Companies that successfully embed digital technologies in their products and services, as well as in their business models and internal processes, adopt a human-centric approach.
Much of today’s devices, systems and processes, are technology-centered, designed around the capabilities of the technology with people being asked to fill in the parts that the technology cannot do. Human centricity means shifting focus and starting with the needs and abilities of and the impact on people. Companies increasingly recognize the need to take people’s and societies’ interests as a guiding principle in their digital innovation projects, to address societal expectations and concerns and to build trust among their stakeholders—they are taking on Corporate Digital Responsibility.
This article (1) highlights the development of Corporate Social Responsibility up into the digital era, (2) introduces Corporate Digital Responsibility as an emerging new field of corporate responsibility, (3) presents a framework of topics that are currently being discussed as building blocks of Corporate Digital Responsibility that aim to stimulate human-centric innovation and build trust in the digital world, and (4) provides some thoughts on how lawyers may contribute to shape corporate responsibility in the digital world.
