Technological innovation has disrupted standard forms of employment and fragmented the world of work, creating new digital sites of work and new modes of work organised around digital platforms. The arrangements for platform work, which vary in form and substance, defy classification in terms of the traditional configuration of employment and bypass the boundaries of South African labour law. Even the net of protection designed to provide labour rights for atypical (non-standard) forms of work is inadequate and excludes vulnerable workers in the digital economy from its scope. As such, work in the digital economy is largely ‘characterised by an absence of effective labour regulation’.