Media Hub
Day 1 of the official Digital Hive Summit had a packed agenda covering Internet of Things and consumer protections; Artificial Intelligence accessibility and fairness; new disrupters; and, the issue of true consumer choice.
Strong themes included:
How do we put consumers at the heart of digital innovation?
(Helena Laurent, Director General Consumers International; Bart Combee, President Consumers International; Ana Catarina Fonseca, Director General, Consumer Directorate-General of Portugal; and, Joao Torres, Secretary of State Consumer Protection Portugal Government)
The panel emphasised two main messages: Consumer organisations, business, and government need to work together, share experiences, and co-operate to promote consumer welfare in the digital environment. Consumer trust will be the necessary ingredient to economic growth and to meet social, economic and environmental challenges. Consumers International emphasised that IoT is not just smart fridges, but have the ability to support a more inclusive and sustainable world. For example, smart homes can support the elderly to stay independent in their homes for longer. Autonomous vehicles can reduce fuel use by 44%.
Consumers International noted that the consumer view needs to be represented from the start at the design stage and through the whole supply chain. Greater data about product supply chains can also give consumers greater control about their purchasing decisions. It will be necessary to bring consumer, digital and sustainable development goals together to shape the future.
What will consumer choice look like in the future digital economy?
(Phil Evans, UK Competition and Market Authority; Reinald Kruger, Vodafone; Marta Tellado, Consumer Reports; Toa Charm, Chinese University of Hong Kong Business School; and, Babatunde Irukera, Consumer Protection Council)
The panel discussed that the locus of consumer choice is moving and that a design shift is required to reflect and empower those who make choices.
Consumer Reports called for a broader definition of consumer rights – one which encompasses human rights and other social justice movements. Marta also commented that the lack of transparency and real choice for consumers requires consumer policy organisations to have new capabilities, including: a shift in the evaluation of products (to get involved at the design stage) and to understand consumer harm in the digital environment. Consumer choices needs to be understood not as an add-on but a fundamental right.
The Consumer Protection Council commented that consumers need to have more of a partnership role rather than being dragged along by technology.
For Consumer Reports, one of the main challenges for consumer groups is to have the capability to sit at the table, which requires a level of technology understanding, and direct change for consumer benefit. For consumers the future is now, with very few rights, standards or protections in many jurisdictions.
Keeping up with the pace of change – how regulators are responding to digital innovation (Carina Tornblom, European Commission; Bart Combee, Consumers International; Lucas del Villarreal, SERNAC; and, Taylor Bentley, Government of Canada) The EU Commission noted that the task was to become smarter regulators and policymakers. Part of this is collaborating with civil society and businesses, as there will be different lenses on the same issue and a lack of share understanding.
The Government of Canada echoed these sentiments with some direct advice from Taylor Bentleyon what being smart means for a policymaker: Start off admitting you don’t know everything; you have to be comfortable with change; smart policy must be based on the evidence and consider all mechanisms. Both regulators conceived of smart regulation as collaborative, evidence based, specific to the problem and open to change. This has important implications for the resourcing of civil society to engage with the shift in regulatory and policy approach.
SERNAC focused on the role of government agencies to better collect data in a systematic manner about the performance of companies, making rankings of better and worse performers available to consumers and the public.
The EU Commission also had a wide range of comments on the regulation of platforms, including :No one is exempted from regulatory frameworks and principle-based legislation, including platforms. Consumers are an important economic power and we should look to initiatives that enable us to negotiate as such. Much more investment in research is required to understand the market and the consequences of certain behaviours – especially with respect to dark patterns and unfair commercial practices developing online, both intentional and unintentional.
Disrupting choices
(Georg Goeres, Indigo Agriculture; Gilly Wong, Hong Kong Consumer Council; Flora Coleman, Transferwise; Cedric Mussou, UFC-Que Choisir; and, Melchert Duijve, Aurum Europe BV)
This panel session looked at digital disruption and the impact on consumers in the finance, food and energy sectors. Digital disruption increases consumer power with the right information given at the right time but carries hidden problems, including biased, wrong or missing information and unclear consumer rights in terms of platforms, security, data. The example of the ‘ugly fruit’ project in Portugal to highlight benefits of digital disruption. This project has helped around 200 fruit producers sell their fruit that does not meet the visual standards of supermarkets on other online platforms. The panel discussed that only select information on special products (such as organic produce) was available, while general products do not provide useful information to consumers like antibiotic usage and pesticide residue. UFC-Que Choisir and Aurum Europe BV suggested that there was a role for consumer groups to be more disruptive in order to show businesses best practice in emerging sectors. The panel discussed that there needs to be more open and transparent dialogue across the supply chain, with an acknowledgement for example, that sustainable food will cost more.
AI: accessibility and fairness
(Alan Kirkland, Choice; Colin Strong, IPSOS; Eve Andersson, Google AI; and, Marco Pierani, EuroConsumers)
The panel started with an introduction on AI and machine learning, with an acknowledgement that human bias is present at all stages of the process. The lessons from this acknowledgement are threefold:
Data reimagined
(Ivo Mechels, EuroConsumers; Fabrizio de Liberali, digi.me; Niall Murphy, EVRYTHNG; Peter Lochbihler, Booking.com; and, Paul Nagle, Alibaba Group)
Privacy Warriors versus Privacy Police
(Monique Goyens, BEUC; Pernille Tranberg, Data Ethics; and, Isabelle Buscke, vzbv)
The panel discussed different approaches to privacy protections, including pro-privacy services, and stronger regulation (such as making third party cookies illegal) and strong enforcement of regulation.
Most importantly, BEUC highlighted that the new explosion in discussion of ethical guidelines are only ever an addition to hard regulation and enforcement, they’re not a replacement.
Banking on the future
(Caroline Normand, Which?, Frederica Pelzel, MasterCard, Maria Lucia Leitao, Central Bank of Portugal, and Alexandra Rizzo, Smart Campaign)
The panel discussed building an agenda for financial inclusions and identifying risks that consumer policy groups need to grapple with in this area. The Central Bank of Portugal commented that fintech brings undoubted benefits but also risks including security, privacy, exclusion and the speed of access exacerbating existing risks such as predatory lending. The panel discussed that avoiding exclusion was a tough issue for everyone and one that government, civil society, and financial literacy groups needed to work on together. Smart Campaign commented that those accessing digital finance were often already eligible for traditional finance, so exclusion was carried over from the physical to the digital world. MasterCard added that building in diversity at the design stage was a key lever in avoiding exclusion.
So much to absorb, and that’s just Summit Day 1! We can’t wait to see what the rest of the week brings.
Cheers,
Lauren and Brigid
Consumer Law
September 12, 2024
While there are some positive developments the fragmented approach potentially leaves crucial gaps in protecting Australians' digital rights.
July 11, 2024
Our project aims to fill this gap by providing an in-depth understanding of the consumer decision-making process. We will investigate how consumers navigate the plethora of information and marketing messages they encounter at the point of display or purchase.
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