How can we use standards to better protect consumers in the digital world?
Consumers International is a well-established liaison organisation with the International Organisation of Standardisation Consumer Policy Committee (ISO COPOLCO). Following the organisation’s 40th annual congress last week, Justin Macmullan and Antonino Serra ask what role standards can play in protecting consumers in a fast-paced digital world.
ISO COPOLCO’s 40th Congress was a chance to see what role standards can play in addressing the trust deficit that exists between consumers and companies in the digital economy.
Our work suggests that most consumers trust digital companies to deliver fast, engaging and convenient services, however far fewer consumers trust those same companies on issues such as privacy, data security or the accuracy of the information they provide. Recent news stories highlighting examples of weak data protection and security and the biased results of some AI decision making will certainly not have helped.
For many years international standards have played a valuable role in helping companies to provide non-digital products that consumers can trust, maybe they can do the same with digital products?
A big agenda
ISO already has a growing catalogue of digital standards with more at various stages of development. To name just a few examples; there are already standards covering e-commerce, a new standard is about to be agreed on online reviews and issues such as privacy by design, digital legacies and terms and conditions were discussed as topics for future work. It should also be remembered that many existing ISO standards are as relevant to digital products as they are to non-digital products.
In a recent survey, we asked Consumers International’s members which issues they thought were a priority to be addressed through standards. Some issues such as data protection, the Internet of Things and children’s digital products, received slightly more support than others, but it was striking that almost all of the issues we put forward received significant support suggesting there is a big agenda of issues to be dealt with.
So, ISO and Consumers International members certainly see a role for standards in tackling these digital issues.
Standards to the rescue?
In relation to digital issues, international standards certainly have advantages that suggest they could have an important role to play in addressing many of the issues facing consumers. For example:
- their focus on processes and principles could make them more flexible and allow them to adapt to the innovation and rapid change in digital products and services.
- as their name suggests, they are international which is certainly an advantage in the globalised digital economy.
- they are developed through a multi-stakeholder process that enables them to draw on expertise from governments, business and civil society to properly understand the problem and find effective solutions.
- International standards are voluntary, but they can be made mandatory through national regulation or incorporated directly into regulation.
However, there is also a major challenge.
Currently International standards can take three to four years to develop and that is once they have been proposed and accepted. With the fast pace of change in the digital world, this timescale must be reduced.
Yet ISO has to do this whilst maintaining the participative and multi stakeholder process that is a requirement of international standard setting. This will be a challenge, but it is one that must be addressed if standards are to maintain relevance in a digital world.
The future
The survey of Consumers International’s members mentioned above also told us that 60% of our members have been involved in developing national standards in the last two years and 30% have been involved in international standards.
Consumers International believes it is crucial that consumers voices are championed in the development of standards. We are committed to working with ISO, ISO COPOLCO and our members to develop new standards to meet the challenges of the digital world and, where we can, to help the international standards system find new ways of working that will deliver the standards consumers at a speed to match the fast-paced digital world.