The population of Trinidad and Tobago needs to be educated on the risks of using digital technology.
This came from one of the top technocrats at the Ministry of Public Administration and Artificial Intelligence, as she participated in a panel discussion at the Central Bank of Trinidad and Tobago.
The Deputy National Chief Digital Officer in the Ministry of Public Administration and Artificial Intelligence, Denyse White, said businesses and consumers need to understand the risk element of living, working, and operating in the digital environment.
“It’s no point having the most sophisticated alarm system in your house if you don’t turn it on. So people need to be made aware of what digital activity means and how protection needs to happen both from the technological point of view, things like your two-factor authentication, and again it’s risk. Again, with the banks, the type of transaction will depend on how much authentication needs to happen.”
Drawing on her expertise in digital governance, Ms. White highlighted the importance of educating citizens about the value of protecting their digital identity.
“It also has to be an education of the citizenry as a whole in terms of what protection looks like, what does it mean, and recognition of the fact that your digital identity is just as important as protecting your wallet with your driver’s license, with your bank cards. Know that your digital ID is a real one and treat it as such.”
Adding her voice to the discussion, Vice President of Liberty Caribbean, Simone Martin-Sulgan, noted that businesses have to prepare for the impacts of climate change.
“The level of hurricane activity, the severity, those things have a direct impact on our existing infrastructure, which would mean we need to provide opportunities for redundancy, for example, your data centre’s usage of the cloud. So if there is a disaster there is a business continuity plan in place. Likewise the utilisation of things like satellite and other LEO operators to help us do seamless transition from terrestrial, because we’re impacted to satellite, to make sure the disruption is not on a long term scale.”
The topic under discussion by the panel was ‘The Digital Economy: Rewiring the Analogue Economy to Achieve Durable Benefits.’