The digital divide remains one of the pressing challenges, as it persists in both developed and developing regions. Recent events that required a sudden and radical shift from offline to online have brought the digital divide issue sharply into focus. Prior research has investigated how differences in mobile ICT availability and use relate to individuals’ income opportunities or lack thereof. In this research, we take a new perspective on digital divides. We show that besides the commonly investigated digital divide in economic and opportunity-related terms, the unavailability of mobile ICT can give rise to a digital divide regarding public safety. In detail, we leverage publicly available spatial crime data and the random occurrence of mobile ICT outages to investigate the link between ICT use and safety for distinctly wealthy population sub-groups. Based on the results of a difference-in- differences analysis, we find that the effects of mobile ICT discontinuations are non- uniform across socioeconomic groups with socioeconomically disadvantaged areas suffering disproportionally higher increases in property crimes than their wealthier counterparts. Overall, our research supports the idea of mobile ICT infrastructure as a public utility by showing the importance of fail-safe mobile ICT infrastructures for all, but particularly for socioeconomically disadvantaged areas.
forthcoming in European Journal of Information Systems
