Digital exclusion is "the inability to interact with the online world fully, when where and how an individual needs to.” - The Digital Poverty Alliance

Digital exclusion can be driven by a range of factors, such as no access to the internet, no access to a connected device, the cost of living crisis, insufficient digital skills or particular vulnerabilities or disabilities.

For ethical, commercial and legal reasons, companies therefore need to consider how they and their products and services can be more digitally inclusive. As more social and business services are being digitalised to increase efficiency and save costs, there is increasing legislation to ensure digital inclusion, and there are a range of legal, regulatory and wider considerations such as non-discrimination laws, vulnerable consumers, accessible terms, unfair commercial practices, data protection laws and sectoral regulation.