Our theme for World Consumer Rights Day 2017 was Building a Digital World Consumers can Trust. More than 45% of the world’s population is online now, compared with just 1% in 1995. The rapid growth of the internet, mobile phones and other digital technologies has created opportunities and challenges for millions of consumers around the world.
We want to help build a digital world that consumers can trust and this was the focus of our campaigning activity for World Consumer Rights Day on 15 March 2017.
We partnered with the German Federal Ministry of Justice and Consumer Protection (BMJV) and our German member, the Federation of German Consumer Organisations (VZBV) to co-host a G20 consumer summit on 15 March, in Berlin, Germany.
The summit, part of the official G20 agenda for the German Presidency, discussed a range of topics including fair contract terms, secure payments, clear, accessible information, data security and data protection. Together we looked at how we can strengthen consumer protection and increase access to the digital economy in order for everyone to benefit from digital technology.
The summit also included a presentation of new international research on the most important areas for consumer digital rights and concerns, including the results of a consumer survey conducted in six G20 countries. This event formed a key part of the activity for our World Consumer Rights Day #BetterDigitalWorld social media campaign.
On World Consumer Rights Day, 134 of our members in 92 countries came together across the globe to mark the day and tackled in the issue of how to building a digital world that consumers can trust. From taking part in debates and discussions, conducting workshops with school children and speaking on radio and television shows, our members are raising awareness of the need for a digital world consumers can trust. Through the social media campaign our message reached 9.2 million people, with #BetterDigitalWorld campaign.
Our live blog was streamed in real time throughout World Consumer Rights Day to keep everyone up to date with events and initiatives taking place.
Consumers International members in 100 countries are calling for a focus on the protection and empowerment of individuals in the marketplace based on consumer rights, and for coordinated strategies across nations and intergovernmental bodies to build fair, safe, resilient and sustainable economies through consumer protection.
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Access to the internet is a powerful tool that should not be taken for granted. More than 4.4 billion users worldwide are now connected, spending a daily average of 6.5 hours online. But whilst reliable internet access is a reality for many consumers across the globe, for billions it is still a distant dream.
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