Report: Medvedev says digitalization should not create Big Brother

MOSCOW, Jun 17 (PRIME) – The omnipresent digitalization should not provoke the risk of appearance of a Big Brother and restrictions of people’s rights, Deputy Chairperson of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev said in journal Russia in Global Affairs, seen by PRIME on Wednesday.

“Digital technologies will undoubtedly become the most important driver behind the socioeconomic and political development in the post-pandemic world. It is critically important to draw a line between the benefits provided by digital technology and the threat of a digital Big Brother and restrictions of fundamental human rights and freedoms. The economic efficiency that comes with digital technologies cannot be bought at the cost of digital totalitarianism,” Medvedev said.

“Organizing the manufacturing processes in the new environment is a separate matter. Many business standards will need to be revised with account taken of the epidemiological risks, which will likely increase the economic costs.

“At the same time, digital technologies have the potential to offset these costs, but this will give rise to the need to develop new structural and institutional solutions. The regulatory guillotine in these circumstances does not recede into the background. On the contrary, its relevance increases sharply, because digital technologies not only make it possible, but, in fact, require that we firmly reject obsolete forms of oversight and supervision that impede socioeconomic growth.”

Medvedev also said that the pandemic set new requirements for the sectors that directly determine living conditions, such as education and healthcare.

“It will be necessary to rethink the long-term role of digital technologies in all these areas and make sure they benefit from it significantly since human capital, or, more precisely, human potential, is a key factor in the XXI century competition. We must clearly understand that global cooperation, the need for which the pandemic emphasized once again, does not eliminate global competition,” Medvedev said.

End %%ee/jst%%