The Elderly and the Right to Digital Literacy, on the Base of the Recommendation of the UN on the Age of Digital Interdependence

The number of elderly people in the world is increasing. According to the World Population Prospects, by 2050, one in six people worldwide will be over 65. At the same time, the world has witnessed the increasing development of digital technology. This process has raised various concerns by human rights activists regarding the existence of bias and prejudices against the capabilities of older adults and, as a result, the lack of attention to their needs in digital literacy. On the other hand, the right to digital literacy has not been explicitly discussed in the framework of international human rights. In this regard, the Secretary General of the United Nations proposed preparing regulations to determine governments' obligations in the digital field. This proposal led to the presentation of the United Nations' recommendations in the age of digital interdependence. Which, despite the existence of some shortcomings, contains the international obligations of governments in the control and monitoring of digital technology. The main subject of this research is to investigate the attention of the recommendation to the right of the elderly to acquire digital literacy and reduce the digital divide in societies. This study used the analytical-descriptive method, using library and internet resources. The findings of this research show that due to the lack of clarity in referring to the right of the elderly to have digital literacy as an independent human right and also emphasising the need for public access to digital services, regardless of different economic and social conditions of the countries and presenting a proposal for the sharing of digital goods, irrespective of the intellectual property rights of the creators of these types of goods, the recommendation would not be successful in achieving its goals.