Legal and regulatory protections in cyberspace have not kept up with the times. They are better suited to the internet of the past than the present. Today’s dependence on the internet has thrust society into a new era, making effective public protections critical for a healthy cyberspace.
The COVID-19 pandemic has made cyberspace critical infrastructure. When schools, stores, restaurants and community gathering places closed, the U.S. went online and digital technologies became the primary platform for education, grocery delivery, services and many workplaces.
In the last four months, I’ve attended a Zoom funeral, a Zoom wedding and taken ballet classes online. This fall I’ll teach online. Many of the shifts from on-site to online are here to stay, and I predict the “new normal” will put much more emphasis on interacting in cyberspace.
This creates new urgency for public protections. As former head of a national Supercomputer Center and a data scientist, I’ve seen that digital exploitation of personal information is the pandemic in cyberspace. It puts individuals and society at risk.
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Source: Cyberspace is critical infrastructure – it will take effective government oversight to make it safe