TECH-ASSIST
Since 2000, the push towards digitisation of information and services has advanced at breakneck speed. Covid-19 has accelerated digitisation trends and propelled the majority of statutory and civic services to being digital by default. While there are many benefits to a ‘digital-first’ or ‘digital by default’ society, organisations, technology companies and governments are often implicitly responsibilizing individuals to take care of their own cybersecurity while using all these essential online services. The phenomenon of digital exclusion is well-documented, and cybersecurity requirements and fear of cyber risks can play a role in exacerbating such exclusion. Those who experience literacy difficulties – either traditional literacy (reading/writing/spelling) or digital literacy – often experience digital exclusion in some form. In this report, we review some of the literature on digital literacy, and consider six research questions that emerge related to the use of digital technologies by those who experience literacy difficulties. We then explain how we designed and refined a survey which we used to structure interviews with those identified as experiencing low literacy. We wanted to understand the difficulties and cybersecurity challenges experienced by this group. We report on our initial data analysis and the challenges of surveying this demographic. We then return to answer the research questions, and conclude with some lessons learned and suggestions for future work in this domain.