MOSCOW, June 17. /TASS/. Economic efficiency provided by the digitization cannot be bought at the expense of "digital totalitarianism," Deputy Chairman of Russia’s Security Council Dmitry Medvedev wrote in an article, published in the Russia in Global Affairs journal 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," he wrote.
Medvedev pointed out that new institutes and mechanisms of public and economic life are being formed, which are based on the newest technological solutions. According to the official, "a detailed analysis of the solutions related to creating new anti-crisis institutions should already be under way. It is imperative to understand which institutions are short-lived and need to be eliminated eventually, and which ones represent a breakthrough into the future."
Special attention, Medvedev noted, must be paid to organization of production amid new circumstances.
"Many business standards will need to be revised with account taken of the epidemiological risks, which will likely increase the economic costs," he wrote.
"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 pointed out.
The pandemic, according to the Deputy Chairman, set new requirements to the functioning of sectors that directly determine living standards, including education, healthcare, conditions of work and leisure, motivation system and other.
"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 21st century competition," Medvedev wrote, adding that "we must clearly understand that global cooperation, the need for which the pandemic emphasized once again, does not eliminate global competition."