Safe Internet Alliance

In an article that ran in The Orlando Sentinel on April 24th, "What Digital Divide? Hispanics are Online—Now!", guest columnist Esther J. Cepeda quoted statistics from a report by Scarborough Research, entitled, "The Power of the Hispanic Consumer Online."

According to the Scarborough report:

• 54% of Hispanics are now online.
• Internet access among Hispanics grew from 48% in 2004 to 54% in 2008 versus Internet access by all consumers, which grew from 64% in 2004 to 69% in 2008.
• 51% of 18-34 year-old Hispanic Internet users downloaded digital content in the past month versus the 35% of the total online population that did.
• Hispanics have been taking advantage of the expansion of broadband, and their rate of adoption has mirrored that of the total U.S. population. Currently, 68% of Hispanic Internet users have a broadband connection in their household. This grew from 13% in 2002 – an increase of more than fivefold.

Statistics like these are the primary reason the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC) joined the Safe Internet Alliance – they demonstrate the growing presence of Hispanics on the Internet. It is wonderful that the U.S. government, through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act, is focused on creating broadband access to minority communities, including Hispanics. But we already have a significant population online, and while we focus on continuing to expand that group, we also have to safeguard it.

LULAC joined the Safe Internet Alliance because we want to work to protect the 51% of our 18-34 year-olds that already download digital content from phishing scams and Trojan horse viruses; we want the identities of the 54% of Hispanics already online to be private and safe from identity theft. We joined because online safety may not one day be an issue for our community; we joined because it already is.

Brent Wilkes
LULAC National Executive Director