Scottish charity People Know How work to support people struggling with data poverty and social exclusion through their Reconnect service, as well as supporting the Scottish Government with their Connecting Scotland scheme by running the helpline.
With data poverty highlighted by the coronavirus pandemic, People Know How organised a cross-sectoral event during the first lockdown to encourage collaborative discussion around digital inclusion, social isolation and generally, data poverty. ‘Connect Four: Digital Inclusion’ led to People Know How’s event report, forming the foundation for their Connectivity Now campaign which identifies and promotes three key action points for all sectors to champion in order to target data poverty.
This research report discusses action point one – Regulating Connectivity – drawing attention to the issue of affordable data and analysing both domestic and international approaches that exist to address unaffordable data or digital exclusion more generally. This research is useful for both People Know How to help develop their existing and future projects, and for key policy actors as it offers an analysis of current and past policy measures to suggest how regulated connectivity could be practically delivered in Scotland or the UK. The research argues that while current Scottish and UK wide policy measures acknowledge the issue with unaffordable tariffs, they do not fully commit to addressing it. It promotes further commitment to solving the issue by suggesting an approach similar to that of Mexico and Finland which would target digital exclusion goals more accurately.