What is Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI)?

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is an extensive, interconnected network of digital capabilities that serve as the backbone of modern society, playing a pivotal role in enabling active, inclusive participation in societal functions and markets. Comparable to how roads and electricity are crucial for our physical world, DPI has become an integral part of our digital lives, and therefore, increasingly encompassing many aspects of our interactions.

Simply, DPI can be most usefully understood and then seen in an essential platform and system layer existing on top of a distributed physical hardware layer (servers, data centers), and enabling a diverse application layer. DPI is necessarily apparent in everyday services from payments infrastructure and verified data exchange, to everyone’s current favourite topic, providing open access data for training generative AI algorithms.

Critical DPI Capabilities

Institutions and technology continues to develop the basis for DPI. However, three underlying capabilities are generally understood as critical; digital identity, digital payments, and data exchange. In the context of digital public infrastructure, these can be understood as;

Identification:

Identification refers to the comprehensive set of mechanisms and protocols that enable individuals and businesses to establish and verify their digital identity securely. It encompasses a wide range of processes, technologies, and services that facilitate the authentication and validation of users’ identities in digital transactions and interactions. This includes the secure verification of individuals’ personal attributes and the provision of complementary trust services, such as electronic signatures and decentralised, verifiable credentials, which can be employed to attest to various details, such as academic qualifications, passports, and driver’s licenses. The overarching goal of identification within DPI is to ensure a robust and trusted system that allows seamless and reliable identification of individuals and entities in the digital realm while safeguarding their privacy and personal information.

Payments:

Payments refer to the efficient and secure transfer of financial value between various stakeholders, including individuals, businesses, and government entities. It encompasses a range of digital payment methods and systems that enable seamless and rapid transactions, facilitating money exchange across digital platforms and channels. The objective of the payments component within DPI is to create a reliable and inclusive digital payment ecosystem, allowing people and organisations to conduct transactions, remittances, and other financial activities easily and conveniently. This involves the development of interoperable payment systems, digital wallets, and secure authentication mechanisms that protect users’ financial data and ensure the integrity and reliability of payment transactions in the digital age.

Data exchange:

Data exchange refers to the smooth and secure flow of information and data across both governmental and private sector entities. It involves the establishment of standardised protocols and mechanisms that enable seamless sharing and transmission of data while ensuring compliance with data protection and privacy regulations, including obtaining user consent where required. The data exchange component aims to create a transparent and accountable system that allows relevant information to be securely shared among authorised entities, supporting efficient service delivery, fostering innovation, and enhancing decision-making processes. Emphasis is placed on implementing robust data governance frameworks that safeguard personal data and protect against unauthorised access or misuse while promoting openness, transparency, and responsible data-sharing practices within the digital ecosystem.

The Benefits of DPI

Given these defining capabilities, the importance of DPI is fairly self-evident. Overall, the importance of DPI lies in its potential to create a secure, efficient, inclusive, and transparent digital ecosystem that fosters trust, innovation, and improved decision-making.

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DPI should:

• Ensure Security and Trust: DPI is critical for ensuring the security and trustworthiness of digital transactions and interactions, supporting robust and reliable identification mechanisms that safeguard privacy and personal information.
• Promote Inclusivity: Providing access to resources or services and paving the way for broader economic and social participation, fostering a more equitable digital society, particularly enabling individuals and entities underserved by traditional financial and information systems to participate in digital transactions and data exchange.
• Enhances Decision-making Processes: By facilitating the smooth flow of data, DPI allows for better decision-making processes in both the public and private sectors. This can lead to more efficient services, better resource allocation, and improved outcomes for individuals and businesses.
• Foster Transparency: DPI fosters transparency and accountability by facilitating secure and regulated data exchange. This is critical in promoting trust in digital platforms and services.
• Enable Collaboration and Innovation: DPI’s data exchange component facilitates the smooth and secure flow of information and data across government and private sector entities. This encourages collaboration and fosters innovation by allowing relevant information to be securely shared among authorised entities.

Recent examples of DPI at work include Ukraine’s digital government application, Diia, which provides a digital wallet for citizens to store digital documents, including a passport, ensuring the continued access to public services and receipt of emergency payments. Similarly, Thailand’s PromptPay, a fast payment system that links a financial account to an individual’s ID or phone number, helps to significantly accelerate the government’s cash assistance rollout during the COVID-19 pandemic.

What are the preconditions for these benefits?

The design, development, deployment and provision of DPI should follow certain universal principles intrinsic to all forms of public infrastructure:

• Inclusivity: DPI should be nearly universally accessible, with instances of exclusion being rare. Just as everyone should have access to roads, water, and electricity in the physical world, digital access should be a universal right in the digital world. Without such access, citizens might be deprived of crucial services such as public benefits, voting, or establishing a bank account.
• Foundationalism: DPI should be a base upon which any entity can build. For instance, electrical grids enable the operation of countless services and appliances. Likewise, DPI, such as payment systems and ID verification, should be equally extensible, allowing all kinds of organisations to utilise these platforms for their operations.
• Interoperability: DPI should embrace open, interoperable standards to ensure inclusivity and functionality. These standards enable a variety of services to utilise the infrastructure, just as standardisation of voltage and plugs allows diverse appliances to use electricity. Similarly, clear standards in DPI should promote a competitive ecosystem that can supply underlying components and diverse services built on it.
• Public Accountability: The distinguishing factor of ‘public’ infrastructure is its publicly accountable governance mechanism, which ensures inclusivity, functionality, and interoperability. The implementation of DPI must ensure accountability to the public interest through effective governance.
• Inclusive Governance: The oversight of DPI mustn’t be solely left to government entities. To prevent potential harm or exclusion, a diverse range of stakeholders, including citizens from impacted groups and civil society, must be involved in the infrastructure design process.
• Enforcement Mechanisms: Public interest accountability in DPI necessitates that governments have mechanisms to enforce it. These mechanisms could include ownership, regulation, policy, and/or law, ensuring that DPI remains accountable and beneficial to the public.

What are the implementation Challenges and Risks?

While developing and implementing Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) undoubtedly presents a significant technological challenge, it is crucial to note that DPI is not solely a technical issue. A holistic understanding of DPI necessitates exploring its sociotechnical dimensions, recognising the interplay between technology, society, and political structures, which in concert can determine the success or failure of DPI initiatives.

• Cybersecurity Threats: Digital public infrastructure systems are susceptible to cyber threats from hackers and other malicious entities. These threats can range from data breaches to distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attacks, which can disrupt the availability of public services.
• Funding Challenges: Building and maintaining DPI necessitate substantial funding, and governments may need help with budget constraints and establishing sustainable financing models.
• Privacy and Security Challenges: Handling vast amounts of sensitive data in DPI raises concerns about privacy and security breaches, requiring robust measures to safeguard citizens’ information.
• Digital Divide Challenges: DPI could exacerbate the digital divide, leaving some population segments, especially marginalised and vulnerable groups such as homeless individuals, refugees, or persons with disabilities, without access to the services provided.
• Environmental Impact: The design and deployment of digital public infrastructure can have a significant environmental impact, particularly in terms of energy use and electronic waste.
• Legal and Regulatory Challenges: Ensuring compliance with laws and regulations related to data protection, privacy, cybersecurity, and other relevant areas can be a complex and challenging process. Failure to comply with these laws and regulations can result in legal sanctions and reputational damage.
• Risk of Digital Repression and Digital Authoritarianism at Scale: The centralised control and extensive data collection in DPI can potentially be misused by authoritarian regimes, leading to digital repression and the curtailment of individuals’ rights and freedoms on a large scale. Governments must balance effective governance and protecting citizens’ civil liberties in the digital realm.

In conclusion, Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) represents an essential technological revolution that plays a vital role in the digital era. DPI will be the backbone of active, inclusive participation in societal functions and markets and confronted with crises; digital public infrastructure is key to building national resilience, as demonstrated by Ukraine’s Diia digital wallet and Thailand’s PromptPay system.

However, realising the full potential of DPI demands adherence to principles of inclusivity, functionality, interoperability, public accountability, inclusive governance, and enforcement mechanisms. It’s also vital to acknowledge and mitigate the challenges and risks, such as privacy and security concerns, the digital divide, and bad actors.

My future research pipeline will delve into the concept of government as a platform, exploring how the power of DPI can be harnessed to deliver public services more effectively and efficiently. A key focus will be on understanding and strengthening Artificial Intelligence Capability and Governance to leverage AI for the public good. This theme aligns well with the essence of DPI and promoting general welfare and safeguarding civil liberties.