What stands out about the Work Agenda Values-Driven Digitization?

This is part 3 in a series of articles on the Net Politics Masterclass 2022.

The Work Agenda Value-driven Digitization is a practical elaboration of the government's policy for digitization. In short, the government wants to take more control and take a normative approach to get a firmer grip on the digital transition. Central to this are people, society and public values. The end goal is 'a safe, promising and inclusive digital society'. The first work agenda focuses on the themes 'digital foundation' and 'digital government' and consists of five programme lines with concrete goals and actions. I will explain below what I think is relevant for designers.

Digital services must be accessible to everyone. The government therefore wants to invest in citizens' digital skills and prevent the spread of online disinformation. Another spearhead directly affects our work: the development of an 'accessible, high-quality and proactive service'. Citizens should always be able to choose the desired form of service: 'click', 'call' or 'face'. Services need to be offered more from life events and more proactively - now the citizen often has to take the initiative himself. And citizens who are not or less digitally skilled must be able to be represented in all digital services.

Everyone should be able to enter the online world with confidence. The government wants to guarantee this by, among other things, investing in privacy protection, cyber security and better anticipation of new technology, but also by better protecting public values. For example, there will be a mandatory quality mark 'public values and technology', which all public organisations must use in tenders. The government will structurally apply 'human rights impact assessments' in the development of new technology. Furthermore, public and safe alternatives to online platforms and services are being developed: so-called ‘pubhubs’.

All citizens must be able to control their own data with the government: view data, retrieve it, have it corrected where necessary and determine with whom it is shared. To this end, the government will develop Personal Health Environments and digital overviews with obligations and debts. It must also become easier, more reliable and more privacy-friendly to do business digitally with the government. A high-quality digital identity system should make this possible. Central to this is the ID wallet: a public, open source wallet in which every Dutch person can find his / her IDs, diplomas, insurance details, etc. Finally, regulation of algorithms is on the agenda. The government must be able to explain why and how algorithms are used. There will be a public algorithm register and an algorithm supervisor.

For a values-driven and open digital government, the government must also have its own affairs in order. Priorities are to improve the information management for the openness of administration and of data management (handling data) for citizens and businesses. The government also wants to strengthen its own ICT organisation and systems.

In the meetings of the Masterclass Netpolitics, this work agenda is often cited because it is now an important policy document. Participants and speakers, some of whom work with the State Secretary, praise her ambition. But there is also criticism: the work agenda is difficult to read and very official, while digitization is such a big social theme. A scan of the work agenda raised a number of questions for me.

The agenda focuses on priorities, objectives, actions and intended results. The starting point is the safeguarding of public values. In the introduction of the agenda, the following public values are briefly mentioned in a sentence, without further explanation, such as security, democracy, self-determination, non-discrimination, participation, privacy and inclusiveness.

Apparently, the government assumes that all readers understand the background of these values and also share/acknowledge these values. But is that starting point correct? Isn't it too abstract? For example, do all readers understand what "self-determination" is? Do citizens and government understand the same thing by values such as security, democracy or participation? And can local authorities use the values as a guideline for their services in this way? In other words: is the substantiation of the work agenda clear enough?

The agenda seems to have been drawn up mainly by civil servants for civil servants. You don't read anything about its creation. Who was involved? And if you look at the action holders, you almost only see the names of departments or implementing organizations. This is striking, because in many areas civil society organisations or umbrella organisations are active. They could make a good contribution, ranging from thinking along, drawing up guidelines, monitoring, evaluating to taking their supporters with them.

Some concrete examples:

• Organise a broad social debate on norms and online behaviour online (Waag, Bits of Freedom).
• Conduct structural human rights impact assessments (Amnesty International, Bits of Freedom, Racism and Technology Center).
• Develop a digital overview of debts (Consumentenbond, NIBUD).
• Improving digital services (Dutch Design Agencies or interest groups of people with disabilities).

Social digital standard In short, does this work agenda sufficiently involve society, or will it - with all good intentions - mainly be a government party? The good news is that in the case of the ID wallet, citizens, advocates, scientists and companies are invited to think along - although there are still critical voices about the attention paid to the protection of free choice and privacy. Next to this, the Trade association Dutch Design Agencies developed a Social Digital Standard with standards for values-driven digital services with the Stichting Digitaal Burgerschap Nederland.

Despite or perhaps precisely because of these critical questions, I can wholeheartedly recommend the work agenda. Many plans directly affect digital design work for the (semi-)government and projects in which Informaat colleagues participate. Think of IRMA, improving services provided by the Tax and Customs Administration and the Open Op Orde programme at RWS. Because of the focus on public values, there is also a very strong relationship with our perspective on True Experience.