Checklist for Building Digital Government Platforms
Modularity – Building monolithic single-use systems wastes time, money, and engineering talent. Modular systems enable governments to deploy solutions more quickly and efficiently. The public sector needs a greater focus on developing common standards in order to realize the full potential of this approach.
Open Source – Using open source code helps governments cooperate to develop best-in-class solutions, adapt platforms to meet community needs, and scale solutions to benefit more people at minimal extra cost.
Ethical Design – Governments should prioritize security and privacy when designing and deploying digital platforms. Policymakers must design public sector technology systems with checks and balances to prevent bad actors from using well-intentioned systems to invade privacy and erode trust.
Multi-stakeholder Governance – Providing responsible oversight of digital infrastructure is too important to be left to governments alone. Civil society, academia, and the private sector all have a role in ensuring that public technology platforms are used responsibly. Governments should hardwire critical technology systems with multi-stakeholder governance to prevent abuse both at the time of deployment and by future administrations.
User Ownership of Data – Current data models both in the private sector and authoritarian countries are highly centralized. Societies need to rethink data ownership and empower users to control their own personal data. A user-centered data model could allow more equal access to data insights while preventing government and private sector overreach.
Interoperability – An integrated set of digital government platforms could create a result that is greater than the sum of its parts. If governments embrace common standards and data portability protocols they could facilitate the development of a broader range of interoperable platforms that empower individuals and improve the delivery of public value.
User-centered Design – Public sector technologists should include users in the process of designing, testing, and improving digital platforms. Collaborative human-centric design processes lead to more inclusive digital tools and reduce the risk of unintentional harm.
Digital Equity – Digital transformation has the potential to increase inequities due to the digital divide that affects digitally-illiterate populations and resource-deprived communities. Governments should build tools that ensure those with varying access to technology can benefit from digital transformation.
Building for Resilience – Digital services foster resilience by providing new avenues to accessing public services. Governments should build redundancy into their digital tools by layering them atop analog systems to reduce risk and prevent single-point-of-failure vulnerabilities.
Design for High and Low Digital Capacity – Digital infrastructure varies between countries. Coalitions and innovators should ensure that their solutions are sufficiently modular and adaptable to different contexts so they can scale to jurisdictions that have lower levels of technological capacity.