Internet day: the technology that has become essential today

Throughout the years different commemorative dates are celebrated all over the world. Mother's Day, Earth Day, Book Day and even Intellectual Property Day are some examples of this. Today celebrates the ephemeris of a tool that has become fundamental for the majority of the population today: Internet.

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Why do we celebrate Internet Day?

If one takes into account the essential that the Internet has become for humanity, it is not surprising that a day has been set to commemorate such an important tool. However, because it is relatively recent and not celebrated all over the world, many people are still unaware of its existence.

The Internet Day emerged as an initiative of the Association of Internet Users, who celebrated it for the first time on October 25, 2005. Then, in November of that same year, the Summit of the Information Society was held in Tunis, where the General Assembly of the United Nations was proposed to designate May 17 as the official commemorative date of this celebration.

The UN, in honor of the anniversary of the signing of the first International Telegraph Convention and the creation of the International Telecommunication Union, declared May 17 as World Telecommunication and Information Society Day, or simply Internet Day.

This celebration aims to publicize the possibilities that the Internet and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) can offer to societies. This is established in the final document of the 2005 Summit:

"It is necessary to contribute to making the Internet better known so that it becomes a global resource that is truly accessible to the public. We call for the UN General Assembly (UN General Assembly) to declare May 17 World Information Society Day, which will be held annually and will serve to raise awareness of the importance of this global resource in the issues that are discussed at the Summit, especially, the possibilities that the use of ICTs can offer to societies and economies, and the different ways to close the digital divide ".

Currently, this day is only celebrated in some countries, such as Argentina, Bolivia, Chile, Colombia, Spain, Ecuador, Mexico, Peru, Paraguay, Dominican Republic, Uruguay and Venezuela.

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In Argentina, Internet Day has been held on this date for some years, with the aim of disseminating the progress of the network of networks in the country. What is striking about this year is that it was included in the presentations to the Blockchain technology, and also Bitcoin was discussed.

"The Society of Data"

Each year, Internet Day has a different theme. This time, the central theme is "The Data Society", which aims to make people aware of the large amount of data we generate each day.

Today almost everything we do leaves an important imprint of information: a comment made in a social network, the data we share, with whom we relate, what products we consume, a payment with a credit card, etc. All these data together can provide a large amount of information about a person; This is called "Big Data".

Although Big Data is revolutionizing various aspects in the way of doing business and providing improvements to society, the digital identity, security and privacy of users can also represent a risk. This is why in Europe the General Data Protection Regulation (RGPD) will come into force this May 25th.

Although only one European country celebrates Internet Day, the efforts of the old continent for the protection of privacy with its RGPD are in accordance with the theme of this year.

The BBVA group, within the framework of this celebration, recommends 3 main aspects to consider in order to protect personal information on the Internet:

Stand a moment before posting on social networks (remember that the information published on the Internet leaves a trace).
Check the permissions of your mobile applications.
Do not share personal information lightly.
In the same vein, Daniel Tedini, vice-dean of the Faculty of Information Technology of the UAI, told Infobae : "We must raise awareness among users so that they become aware of the accession contracts they often accept on the web. There are certain contracts that often can be difficult to read and we are giving rise to our tacit acceptance that many things can be done with our data ".

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Although this year's theme is "The Data Society", the UN also calls for focusing its attention on the growing development of Artificial Intelligence and its possible use to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals.

Final considerations

It was in 1994 when Timothy "Tim" John Berners-Lee, considered the "father of the Internet", managed to found the World Wide Web Consortium, based at the prestigious MIT.

24 years have passed since the Internet began to be used as we know it today. 24 years full of progress, innovations, technological developments and evolution. 24 years for today, the Internet has become a fundamental part of our lives.