Digital business models influence society in many different ways. Some of the issues involved go beyond regulatory requirements and relate to the ethical handling of data and information. United Internet is aware of its responsibility here. This is why the double materiality assessment that it performed examined not just the ESRS topics but also the matter of “digital ethics and responsibility,” identifying it as a material entity-specific set of topics.
From a sustainability perspective, the most important topic areas relating to digital ethics and responsibility at United Internet are currently information security, artificial intelligence (AI), and access to the digital world. Material impacts on society and financial risks were derived for these three aspects of the topic of digital ethics and responsibility.
Information security affects not just consumers but also business customers, partner enterprises, and dependent service providers, who can be severely impacted by cyberattacks. If inadequate cybersecurity measures and the failure to perform security updates make IT systems vulnerable to large-scale attacks, this can result in outages and in the theft of sensitive personal or business data. This could lead to blackmail and hence to significant economic losses for the undertakings concerned. In addition, there is a danger that corporate services could be misused for illegal activities. In the long term, such incidents undermine trust in digital technologies and services.
Inadequate cybersecurity measures could lead not only to outages and data losses, but also represent a financial risk for United Internet itself. If the case of cyberattacks or hardware theft, there is a danger on the one hand that unauthorized persons could obtain access to customer or business data and on the other that United Internet’s systems could be misused for criminal activities. This could have follow-on costs for United Internet in the form of legally prescribed investigations, system recovery, litigation, and the loss of customers.
The use of AI in customer support and in individual services, such as to provide the intelligent mailbox offered by the Company’s GMX and WEB.DE brands, entails new responsibilities and potential dangers. The many new, rapidly developing AI models could lead to uncertainty as to the legally compliant and ethical use of third-party AI applications. If no action is taken, sensitive data could find its way into publicly accessible language models. In turn, this could lead to data privacy breaches and both financial losses and non-material damage for the people affected, e.g., as a result of the publication of payment data or personal information. In addition, AI models may exhibit bias, leading to discriminatory decisions. If consumers were to be excluded from using products as a result, this would promote social injustice. What is more, excessive automation can reduce personal contact with customers and potentially negatively impact their user experience.
United Internet provides an essential telecommunications infrastructure. If this infrastructure were to fail or to be impaired, this could have severe consequences for society if, for example, long-term supply bottlenecks, severe disturbances to public order, or other dramatic consequences for critical infrastructure were to occur. Since telecommunications systems serve as the basis for many core services such as emergency communications, traffic management, energy supplies, and financial transactions, outages affecting these systems could have a domino effect, interrupting the ability of vital sectors to function and hindering the coordination of emergency services deployments and governmental measures.
At the same time, the provision of a digital infrastructure offers new opportunities: United Internet is contributing to the digital transformation process by expanding fast digital data networks and connecting companies, small enterprises, schools, and public facilities to them. This smooths the way for innovations and hence promotes long-term competitiveness and preserves jobs. Digitalization has additional positive effects in the area of sustainability: for example, it can be used to replace business travel with digital meetings, which can avoid transportation-related emissions and hence positively affect the environment. Driving forward digitalization can also make digital learning and teaching methods possible or more efficient for school students and teachers, positively impacting education and hence society.
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