The pandemic challenged us, and today, all of us, people and businesses, see the need for reinvention, a term that, in addition to being a cliché of the confinement measures, is the beginning of an accelerated digital transformation. The mandatory quarantine has generated technological projects and quickly revolutionized investment in this field in Colombia, and it seems as if you do not join, you are destined to disappear.

This involuntary revolution raises several questions: Are you ready for the change? Have you already joined the technological race? Do you know what steps to take to reactivate your activities and what technologies can help you? Do you know the rules that regulate e-commerce and how they apply to your business?

Public and private entities stepped up and took advantage of ICTs to continue providing their services. All of them migrated their workers to home office, hosting meetings through platforms such as Google Meets and Microsoft Teams. For example, Bogota’s Chamber of Commerce implemented online conciliation and arbitration hearings and INVIMA and the judicial branch, that did not have an online system, are now offering their services online. 

Also, large and small merchants went from offering their products in physical establishments, to resorting to technology to reactivate their business, strengthening their presence in social networks and venturing into the use and development of their own platforms -like amicasa.com.co- or making alliances with Market Places –like Rappi, Merqueo, UberEats, Amazon- or payment gateways –like PayU, PSE, PayPal-; all to attract new consumers and provide new modalities for the acquisition of goods and services.

In the midst of this technological revolution, which we have been talking about for years, but has now become a necessity, businesses comply by obtaining a domain name, encrypting their information through SSL / TLS, use payment gateways and seek to comply with the e-commerce, consumer and data protection regulations, among others. But these are sometimes insufficient.

Technology changes faster than regulation, which is why many cling to the terms and conditions, contracts and contracting methods -clickwrap, webwrap and shrinkwrap- to regulate relations created within the electronic environment and seek alternatives to identify people in digital environments, using the digital, electronic or even scanned signature and implementing mechanisms associated with biometric aspects -fingerprint, facial recognition-knowledge -user, password-, or objects -cards and / or generators of random codes-.

As we enter this new technological era, electronic commerce regulation -Law 527 of 1999- is more than twenty years old, the ICTs -Law 1341 of 2009- older than a decade, consumer protection statute -Law 1480 of 2011- and data protection -Law 1581 of 2012- were issued about ten years ago. Is this pandemic the impulse required to update the current regulations, so that they include a more avant-garde reality? 

The truth is that the pandemic raised questions in different areas, and many seem to have distant solutions. However, this new normality comes with great opportunities in the digital and technological environments, not only for entrepreneurs, but also for consumers, and regulations must be everything but an obstacle to this end. Ideally, we should take this opportunity to explore and take advantage of these new ways of operating our business, and see this as an opportunity for transformation, innovation, and future growth, that is, not only for businesses, but for our country as well. 

Join the digital transformation challenge, keeping in mind your rights and obligations, as well as those of your consumers!