What are digital blackouts and how do they affect society?
2 minutes read
A technology blackout is defined as a prolonged, large-scale interruption of communication and technology services caused by failures in IT infrastructure.
Santo Domingo. Arium Salud Digital CEO Fedor Vidal explains why technology blackouts can happen and the impact they have at regional and global level.
Following his participation in the third Latin American Digital Health Congress, “Creating the Health of the Future”, held on 10 October, where interesting topics such as identification through Artificial Intelligence (AI) and electronic records were discussed, the expert stated that these digital disruptions can affect airlines, hospitals and even transport.
He also explains that the impact of digital blackouts can depend on their complexity and reach, whether regional or global.
He says that, in aviation, one of these interruptions could affect hundreds of thousands of flights and millions of people, while noting that such events can also be devastating in other industries vital to daily life, such as banking.
“Digital blackouts can happen and will keep happening, especially now that all systems are interconnected one way or another through clouds and applications running on the same platforms,” he says.
He explains that digital blackouts intrude on everyday situations and, depending on how complex the systems are, can disrupt normal life, something explored in the drills that are often carried out.
“In Baltimore, with the hospital, we ran digital blackout drills to see how the city would cope with a disaster, using the same model as natural disaster drills. But when it comes to digital blackouts, everything is digitised right now. We depend heavily on technology and, naturally, digital blackouts stop the world immediately in a way we have no means of recovering from normally,” he recounts.
Vidal stresses that companies working with technology providers should, as clients, require them to present their disaster recovery protocols and have agreements with minimally variable service levels, so that through contracts they can demand from the technology provider the minimum time within which service will be restored in any given case.
Arium Salud Digital
Arium Salud Digital is a company that provides digital services and tools with the aim of transforming how existing processes are managed in the health sector through interconnected systems, while facilitating interaction between the different market players and providing technology solutions for their effectiveness. Arium Salud Digital’s mission is to provide a digital health ecosystem that connects all the sector’s key players, with the aim of improving the population’s quality of life through efficient and secure solutions based on state-of-the-art technology.