Knowledge Base

Privacy by design is an approach that promotes privacy and data protection compliance throughout the whole system engineering process. The Information & Privacy Commissioner of Ontario has taken a leading role in developing the privacy by design concept, establishing a reference framework of “Seven foundational principles of privacy by design” with respect to a proactive, transparent and user-centric engineering process. [1][2]
The 7 principles are:
•    Proactive not Reactive; Preventative not Remedial
•    Privacy as the Default setting

Security by design is an approach in software engineering that promotes to design software from the ground up to be secure.
Core pillars of information security are confidentiality (only allow access to data for which the user is permitted), integrity (ensure data is not tampered or altered by unauthorized users) and availability (ensure systems and data are available to authorized users when they need it). [1]

Governance is a term that has a quite broad context and means in its core to shape or design areas of life. E-Governance (Electronic Governance) is devoted to the challenges of shaping life areas in face of digital revolution and information era and affects all sectors encompassing the public, private and civil sector. It also affects communication and exchange between the sectors.

The term “smart” in this trend indicates, that it is not only about collecting and storing data, but about automation of data analyses. Kim et al. describe this as follows: “Smart surveillance system is mainly composed of automatic video/audio analysis. Therefore, an emerging surveillance system must consider multimedia information for monitoring activities and extracting meaningful information from the environment.”[1]

This trend deals with the use of algorithms in policy and decision making. First, there is the trend of algorithmic regulation. Algorithmic regulation means that regulatory decision making is delegated to algorithms. The algorithms give the instructions of what should be done to achieve a desired outcome. [1]
The trend of using algorithms in governance and an increasing reliance of public decision making on algorithms is sometimes also called algocracy. [2]

Probably one of the biggest needs for administration is to keep up with the technical innovation. To cope with the production of huge volumes of data is a technical problem as well as a big challenge for the staff. On the one hand, there should be established technical infrastructure for new policies and the increasing number of data, on the other hand, the staff needs to be trained and able to manage data and produce “good” data.

This need is primarily about developing and understanding of the technical processes in the administration. Technological potential has to be identified and understood, thereby reducing employees´ fears of technology and possible consequences. A basic understanding of technology in administration can help make the benefits of technology fully available.

Concerns about insufficient security and privacy are ubiquitous when it comes to the use of new technical possibilities - especially in public management. Besides the advantages and potentials, digitisation is associated with some technical and non-technical obstacles. Data protection and information security management can help to preserve trust in government. [1]

All interviewees stated that there is room for improvement in the technical infrastructure. The used technical infrastructure is partly outdated and does not meet current requirements, a fact that consequently increases administrative costs and leads to unnecessary bureaucracy. In addition, the lack of good infrastructure makes digitalisation difficult.

Similar to the standardisation of processes, standardising data management can also provide significant benefits to the public administration, such as time savings and efficiency gains. It is important for the public administration to know what data is available and where it is located. For this purpose, a data monitoring should be established. The need for standardised data management has been confirmed in almost all conducted interviews.