The first speaker on the second day of the Weizenbaum Conference is Victo Silva, whose focus is on the idea of digital public infrastructure (DPI). How should states intervene in the digital economy, if at all? States might provide alternatives to Big Tech options, and such alternatives could then also adopt open technology standards and support innovation; this might produce public benefits.
Three main systems are widely seen as comprising the core of DPI: digital identity systems, payment and financial infrastructures, and data sharing platforms; however, other platforms (including social media) might also be considered. Such DPI platforms, it is hoped, might increase trust in government because they provide more transparency; however, there are also concerns that DPI might lead to a greater privatisation of government and commodification of citizens and their data.
How do policy documents on DPI portray such infrastructures, then? This project gathered some 700 grey literature documents on the subject from the Overton policy database, and gathered three-sentence text excerpts around the phrase ‘digital public Infrastructure’; from this it identified a number of broad themes (such as promoting DPI use; safeguarding society; etc.).
Document production started largely with think-tanks, but governments have caught up; overall, volumes of content begun to increase substantially from 2022 onwards. Promotional texts have now well outpaced safeguarding discussions. Governments in particular are rarely discussing safeguards.
DPI is therefore a new and rapidly growing narrative, driven in part by its novelty, that redefines the state; key concerns include the privatisation of ‘public’ infrastructure, state misuse of data and the lack of safeguards against such misuse, and the need for further policy-making around these developments. Think-tanks are driving these trends, and their rhetoric is gradually being adopted by governments; more work needs to be done to identify what think-tanks these are.
