We all have to work on increasing our digital resilience

Today, we launch the “Unlock Digital Resilience” campaign. This joint initiative by KPN and ING—in close coordination with the police and the government—aims to increase the digital resilience of citizens in the Netherlands. The campaign will give Dutch citizens a better understanding of the most common threats in the digital world, such as phishing, malware, sextortion, or fake news. “Unlock Digital Resilience” consists of free courses citizens can take online or in their neighborhood. They will learn how to recognize digital threats but also what to do should they fall victim to these threats. What’s more, October 8 will be proclaimed the annual “Day of Digital Resilience”.

In modern-day society, with its ever-expanding technological possibilities, digital resilience is an important issue. This means that we all have to work on increasing our digital resilience. KPN and ING are therefore launching the “Unlock Digital Resilience” campaign in close coordination with the police and the government, as announced in July. ING and KPN are developing the campaign in collaboration with the Lowercase foundation.

Marieke Snoep, member of the KPN Management Board responsible for the Consumer Market: “Technology like artificial intelligence creates new opportunities that help us move forward as a society. But at the same time, it’s getting increasingly harder to distinguish real from fake. When we blindly rely on what we are familiar with, scammers can easily take advantage of this, leaving especially young people and the elderly vulnerable to digital abuse. Consider, for instance, fake websites or fake voices that can’t be distinguished from real ones. Increasing our knowledge about these threats and sharing experiences and examples are instrumental to increasing our digital resilience. Unlock Digital Resilience contributes to our mission to create a Better Internet. Not just better in terms of speed and stability, but also safer, greener, and more social.”

Marnix van Stiphout, member of the Management Board Banking and Chief Operations Officer for ING worldwide: “We are committed to making banking as safe as possible and preventing online risks for our customers. It is also important to have greater awareness of and more educational resources about surfing the Internet safely, and thus safe online and mobile banking. Everyone needs to be aware that they should become more digitally resilient and how to do so. That’s why this platform is so incredibly important and why we are proud to have initiated it in partnership with KPN.”

Jim Stolze, founder of the Lowercase foundation, saw firsthand how great the need for digital resilience was. “We all know of someone who clicked on a suspicious link or who was scammed when making an online purchase. But the latest wave of online scams takes it to an entirely new level. Criminals are operating so sophisticatedly that we all have a lot to learn if we want to prevent worse from happening.”

“Unlock Digital Resilience” campaign
The campaign will kick off at “Portus Meridiem” college in Rotterdam Zuid. Aad Lensen, a police officer, will speak to a group of students about digital crime, Dave Maasland (ESET) will explain how hackers operate, and Marieke Snoep (KPN) will talk about “How was your day online?” with students. She will also touch on the message of Meau's song Stukje van Mij (A Piece of Me): “Think before you share”. These courses will also be available on an online knowledge platform where everyone who is interested in learning more about digital resilience can find out about the fun but also not-so-nice aspects of the Internet. Participants can take the courses online but also in their neighborhood if they prefer.

To compile the course materials, the Lowercase foundation put together a special advisory board with experts from organizations like the Dutch Consumers’ Association, Fraud Helpdesk, Hackshield, Meta, Media Literacy Network, the Dutch Police, Rutgers, SeniorWeb, SIDN Fund, and Veilig Internetten (Surfing the Internet Safely). The platform is supported by the Dutch Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations and the Dutch Police, among others. Reports on the level of digital resilience will be issued on the basis of insights provided by the platform. To promote the course and tutorials in Dutch libraries, the platform has also partnered with the Dutch National Library.

Day of Digital Resilience
On the very first Day of Digital Resilience, KPN employees throughout the country pitched in to raise awareness of digital resilience. For example, knowledge sessions and presentations on the topic of digital safety were held in selected stores, inviting consumers to increase their digital resilience and take online courses developed in the campaign at home. For KPN, the very first Day of Digital Resilience marks the start of helping customers feel safer online in as many ways as possible. With nearly 9 million customers, ING can achieve the greatest impact by using its own channels. In communications to customers, ING will highlight the courses and tutorials the platform has to offer. For example, in the week of the campaign launch, ING will point customers to the available “suspicious links” tutorial.