EVENT RECAP: A Digital Approach to Democracies

On March 19, the Digital Impact and Governance Initiative (DIGI) in collaboration with Partners for Democracy Day hosted an online conversation about trust, resilience and digital transformation with a panel of public interest technologists. Contributing to the debate on the topics raised at this week’s third Summit for Democracy in Seoul, the experts focused on how to shore up democracy for future generations by elevating voices committed to digital systems working better in the public interest.

Moderated by Silvana Rodriguez, Senior Digital Fellow at New America, the following panelists contributed their expertise from around the world in a lively conversation that highlighted the overlapping threads running throughout their work: Laura Bingham, Professor of Practice & Inaugural Director of Temple University Institute for Law, Innovation & Technology; Mike Mora, Senior Specialist at the Organization of American States (OAS) in the Department for Effective Public Management, Secretariat for Hemispheric Affairs; Allison Price, Senior Advisor at New America in the Digital Impact and Governance Initiative; and Alek Tarkowski, Director of Strategy at Open Future.

“Resilience” and “trust” often sound a bit abstract – the panelists jumped into conversation by discussing what it could look like when a democracy is successfully able to harness digital tools to nurture resilience and to earn the trust of the people they serve. One of the conclusions of dialogue around this year’s Summit that continues to feel both obvious and elusive is that we need to collaborate to shape a tech future that is inclusive, rights-respecting and drives real progress in people’s lives. For example, how could governments and civil society help reorient private sector innovation towards the public interest? One route the panel explored is digital public infrastructure (DPI), an evolving term for digital identity, financial services, and data governance and how it may be essential to shore up trust and confidence in public institutions.

Three key points from the panel:

• Open data is still key, and data exchange is foundational – not only for transparency and accountability now–but also for the use of emerging and new technologies that need quality data to run on. Further, a digital government initiative can only improve transparency and accountability if these goals are intentional, supported by political directives and buy-in, policies, human capital, commitments, and the ability to be interoperable at the national level.
  • Regions throughout the world should consider the importance of regional agreements to use open data for more transparency in public administration. An example mentioned is the Inter-American Open Data Program to Prevent and Fight Corruption supported by the OAS.
  • It’s illusory to separate DPI and AI as two drivers shaping our digital future, because the idea of integrating emerging technologies is fundamental to the vision of DPI as a foundation for digital government and digital economies. For example, DPI’s data exchange layer is key to the innovation economy that can be built on top–which reinforces the critical importance of open data.
• There are opportunities (and there could be more) to better collaborate on best practices and national approaches to data powered systems -DPI may be the key to approaching the AI space, where the deployment of public solutions creates room to set standards, be more transparent, and work in the open. Many of the learnings from the process of charting out the systemic risks and concentrations of power inherent in digital platforms are not yet being applied to AI.
  • Countries need to foster more cross-sector dialogue that can generate guidelines, especially in light of many countries’ lack of understanding around the AI space. National AI strategy or policies are meaningless without data governance. An example of this is the Inter-American Framework on Data Governance and Artificial intelligence currently under development, where 90% covers data governance and 10% about artificial intelligence.
  • While the United States government is often in “catch up mode,” with public facing digital services, there is much it can and should do on safe DPI adoption, starting with contributing to conversations about shoring up safeguards and innovative work on the technical level. For example, there are ways to include DPI into ongoing global dialogue that could be key to a healthier approach to AI.
• Work towards intentional inclusion rather than unintentional exclusion - much work still needs to be done to name and mitigate the potential harms. This is where the “public” in DPI comes into play and illustrates the need to fix the laws that are implicated. Promoting intentional inclusion is crucial in the development and application of DPI, highlighting the need for legal reforms to prevent the replication of existing discriminatory practices within digital systems.
  • In the case of digital identity, nationality laws, or civil registration that may already be discriminatory in practice (for example, in the 25 countries that don’t allow women to pass citizenship to their children), you don’t want to put in place a digital identity system that codifies those discriminatory systems.
  • Ideally, approaches to ID must emphasize governance in the public interest, this includes safeguarding privacy and ensuring equitable outcomes. Two examples were discussed, the digital identity document issued to Ukrainian refugees in Poland –the first fully digital residence permit in the EU; and the potential of Ukraine's eRecovery program, also operated through the Diia mobile government platform. Digital systems can be effectively leveraged to support societal resilience and provide essential services amidst an ongoing crisis.

This conversation occurred during 24 hours of programming for civil society, international organizations, academic institutions, think tanks, philanthropic organizations, and the private sector to enrich the global democracy debate alongside the third Summit for Democracy. We are encouraged by the breadth of work and discussion taking place to ensure that the decisions we make about our digital systems today have positive implications for the health, prosperity, and resiliency of our communities for years to come.

We want to thank our panelists for their time, expertise, and collaboration. We also want to thank the Partners for Democracy Day organizers for encouraging civil society organizations to unite around open dialogue and bold ideas.