Inequalities and the figure of the digital user by default

This article examines the socio-technical mechanisms underpinning the gradual standardization of the figure of the digital user during the digitization of public services, and its impact on the production of inequalities in their use. It draws on an in-depth case study carried out within a public interest organization in Belgium, and is based on a theoretical approach at the crossroads of the sociology of digital social inequalities, and a study of public action through the prism of its instruments. The article explores the dynamics at play in the design of an online administrative counter, and those of its actual use by populations far removed from digital technology. It thus highlights the ways in which institutional, organizational and technical constraints, coupled with a logic of prioritization of recipients of the service, lead to the disqualification of categories of users whose characteristics are far removed from the behaviour expected of an ‘ordinary’ user-citizen.