Dansk IT actively participates in the debate on digital inclusion

Among other things, the Danish IT Chair of the Public Sector IT Committee, Ejvind Jørgensen, has made a statement to Jyllands-Posten criticising the incompetence of too many citizens in the digital universe. In its submission, Dansk IT calls for action to be taken behind the many strategies in order to put the citizen at the centre of seriousness. You can read the full intervention below or here.

Inaddition, in another intervention in Jyllands-Posten, Ejvind Jørgensen pointed out that leaving citizens on the platform in the meeting with the digital public sector risks undermining the trust of the citizen. Read the full intervention here.

Anna de Boer, as the Fighthouse of the Year in Dansk IT and a member of the Committee for IT in the Public Sector, works on a daily basis in Egedal Municipality’s Citizens’ Service, where she meets citizens and their challenges with public IT. For Dansk IT, Anna has participated in a longer radio broadcast of 24seven. You can listen here.

Where is the human face of digitalisation?

We have left citizens helpless, frustrated and incapable in the digital universe. This is unworthy.

Ejvind Jørgensen, Chair, Danish IT Committee for Public Sector IT

At a discussion meeting in the mid-00s in the CIO Innovation Forum think tank, Kristian Jensen, then Minister for Taxation said: “Whether there are votes in IT? Yes, moving away from you.”

Information technology and digitalisation are complex and not a winning cause for a politician, and as Kristian Jensen more than suggested, as a politician, we want to take a big arc away from the area if you don’t have to stand with a loss case. I think that changing tax ministers have reached the same conclusion. For example, how has debt recovery, property valuation, customs system been taken?

That iswhy, of course, it is also naïve to believe that a future parliamentary election may leave many minutes’ attention to the field of digitalisation. However, in Dansk IT’s view, this is imperative.

If nothing else has emerged from MitID and Mit.dk, this has at least created a debate on how to behave as a state when new technology is rolled out to potentially all Danes.

Let me say immediately: It has not been a gender view. There is not only room for improvement. We have played hasard with people’s trust in the vital digital foundations of society.

We have left citizens helpless, frustrated and incapable in the digital universe. Listening to the reports of the Citizen’s Service in municipalities and the many volunteers who help to lift citizens to new technology, there is a word: unworthy.

Dansk IT acknowledges the support for the strategy developed in 2012 on mandatory digital communication for those who can. It was epoceful and courageous and embarked on an uneven development that has brought us a long way as a society. But at the same time, for more than 10 years, we have warned against taking citizens’ trust and support for digitalisation for granted. We are rapidly moving towards a state where citizens – and not only older people – give up and resign to a system they do not understand and do not have power. And at some point this will lead to ‘going out’, and that some start voting with the feet and say stop.

Changing plans and initiatives have declared that the citizen must be at the centre. Should we not only admit that it has been in the target speakers so far? We must, once and for all, not only make it happen, but also take action.

Citizens must meet with dignity and respect. Digitalisation of society must be done for and with citizens, including IT solutions, as well as the services and support to embrace them. The citizen must be placed first in the way we think about solutions. The set shall be that of the citizen. Good and adequate assistance must be ensured at the point of the citizen. Physically in citizens’ service, where you do it together via video links and telephone, and where you can share the screen with each other. Close family and third sector into and make them an asset. And so there is always a plan B, because the back of digitalisation is also the vulnerability. What do you do when it doesn’t work? This happens and will happen.

It is now in everything, we say. Let me add: with the exception of the Christiansborg Committees. For many years, we have had strong transport committees and jysk traffic mafias in Christiansborg. It is time for Christiansborg to recognise that much of the future’s traffic is digital. Join the battle. Make sure that digitalisation has a human face.