The impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on e-commerce and its interplay with cybersecurity and privacy in the digital space

On 1 May 2020, webinar on the  “Value of Cyber Security and Privacy in Digital and E-commerce Space” was organized by UNIDO and the Consumer Unity and Trust Society (CUTS). This webinar was marked as one of the first joint initiatives of UNIDO and CUTS upon signing of an Memorandum of Understanding on 9 April 2020, aiming to empower consumers to contribute to the global development agenda, as well as support their respective governments in times of global crisis.

The virtual event was held under the auspices of UNCTAD’s E-commerce Week 2020 (27 April 2020 – 1 May 2020). The theme of this conference was to discuss the role E-commerce could play to support communities in addressing various challenges during these unprecedented times.

The panel group was composed of representatives from UNIDO, UNCTAD, DiploFoundation, Parliament of India, and RedShift (Internet company from South Africa). Likewise, more than 260 attendees from  a wide range of industries, with vested interest in e-commerce cybersecurity and data privacy participated in the session. The webinar garnered a lot of attention due to the thematic topic of the session which is pertinent and timely – given the current global COVID-19 pandemic.

The current health situation has forced many enterprises to migrate to the cyberspace to promote business continuity. E-commerce is one such activity that provides enterprises an avenue to do business (even in strict circumstances), but end-consumers and business suppliers provide sensitive data which needs to be protected. There are increasing concerns about data theft and the security of their transactions. Hence, privacy/data protection and cyber security framework are critical to keep the trust of end users and businesses on digital platforms.

Read press release here.

For more information, please contact Raymond Tavares (R.Tavares [at] unido.org (R[dot]Tavares[at]unido[dot]org))