Digital Security Narratives in the Time of COVID-19: A Case for Kindness

ABSTRACT

The COVID-19 pandemic has shined a light on the digital divide and its implications in a digital-first society. In the UK, where our research is focused, parts of society still lack the infrastructure and/or basic skills needed to access essential online services like health, welfare, food, housing and education. During the pandemic, these services became digital by necessity, forcing many people to seek help through informal networks such as community hubs. Based on our focus groups and interviews with voluntary and third sector organisations in the UK, we make a case in this chapter for a kinder, more holistic approach to the accessibility of essential online services, based on the hypothesis that such an approach creates the types of spaces in which the benefits of such services can be more safely realised. © 2023, The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Nature Switzerland AG.