Tag Archives: governments

HOW ARE GOVERNMENTS USING BLOCKCHAIN TECHNOLOGY TO DRIVE TRANSPARENCY AND EMPOWER CITIZENS

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Blockchain technology has the potential to revolutionize how governments operate and engage with citizens. By leveraging blockchain’s inherent decentralization, transparency and security properties, governments around the world are exploring innovative ways to provide more accessible and trusted public services.

A key area governments are targeting is increasing transparency around processes that impact citizens. Blockchain allows important documents, records and transactions to be recorded in an immutable digital ledger that is accessible to all parties. This gives citizens easy verification of government actions and dealings. Land registry is one domain seeing real promise. By digitizing land ownership records on a blockchain, governments can provide a single source of truth for property ownership that is simple for citizens to validate. This reduces disputes and curbs opportunities for fraud or abuse. Countries piloting this include Georgia, Sweden and Ghana.

Voting is another area ripe for reinvention through blockchain. Several governments are experimenting with blockchain-based remote electronic voting platforms to make elections more inclusive, accessible and verifiable. In 2016, the government of Moscow used a blockchain-verified remote voting system for elections to its legislature. West Virginia also piloted blockchain voting for overseas military members. While challenges around identity verification on blockchain still exist, the technology has the potential to increase citizen participation in the democratic process.

Streamlining social assistance programs is another use case attracting interest. Blockchain allows conditional cash transfer and subsidy programs to run more efficiently by automatically tracking eligibility criteria and disbursing funds directly to citizens when certain conditions are met. This reduces opportunities for corruption or errors. In Uruguay, a blockchain platform helped quickly distribute cash benefits to over 100,000 citizens impacted by COVID-19 lockdowns. Similar projects are underway in countries like Bangladesh, Indonesia and Brazil.

Another major area of exploration is using blockchain to fight corruption and optimize government finances. For sensitive areas like government procurement, centralizing records of contracts, expenses, audits and approvals on an open distributed ledger brings much-needed visibility. This deters kickbacks, conflict of interest and wastage by making every transaction transparent to oversight bodies and the public. Groups like Open Contracting Partnership are working with governments in developing nations to implement blockchain-based procurement platforms. Projects are currently live in Botswana, Ecuador and Ukraine.

Governments use blockchain to integrate fragmented internal systems and databases, improving data sharing between agencies. The State of Illinois is using blockchain to seamlessly on-board new constituents by allowing verified sharing of identification data between departments like transportation, education and healthcare. Similar initiatives exist in Canada and some EU nations. This boosts efficiency of cross-agency services while respecting citizen privacy.

Blockchain innovations are streamlining citizen services and enabling novel engagement models. Estonia pioneered a digital ID system powered by blockchain for easy access to all online public services. Blockchain voting also allows governments to conduct policy referendums and solicit real-time feedback from citizens on important issues.

While still early-stage, blockchain solutions show tremendous potential to revolutionize inefficient systems, increase transparency and foster better governance worldwide. As technical issues are addressed, blockchain will likely transform citizen-government interactions and relationships in the years to come. Governments actively pursuing such changes are in the forefront of optimizing public welfare through decentralized technologies.

Blockchain gives governments new routes to solve old problems around trust, transparency and service delivery when interacting with citizens. Projects exploring land registry modernization, voting reforms, social program optimization, anti-corruption efforts, cross-agency data sharing and digital public services clearly show its radical potential when properly implemented. Going forward, as national blockchain strategies mature, we may see revolutionary overhauls of how democracies function and citizens engage with the state.

HOW CAN GOVERNMENTS AND ORGANIZATIONS SUPPORT WORKERS IN TRANSITIONING TO NEW ROLES AS A RESULT OF TECHNOLOGICAL DISRUPTION

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Technological disruption through automation and artificial intelligence is likely to significantly impact many jobs and industries in the coming years. While this disruption may increase productivity and economic growth, it also risks displacing many workers who need to transition to new roles. Both governments and organizations have an important role to play in supporting workers through this transition.

To help workers transition effectively, governments should significantly increase funding for retraining and skills development programs. Workers needing to transition out of declining industries will require support to learn new skills and qualify for in-demand jobs of the future. By making community college free or low-cost, and offering grants/loans for vocational training programs, more workers can access education and retool their careers. Retraining programs should be designed based on detailed forecasts of which jobs are most likely to be impacted and which emerging jobs will need to be filled. This ensures retraining funds are targeted to support transitions into stable, growing career paths.

Governments can also establish online reemployment centers to help workers explore career options. Through skills assessments and job matching tools, these centers can guide workers towards suitable training programs based on their existing experience and skills. Centers could also offer remote digital skills courses to help workers gain qualifications for more technology-focused jobs even if they are unable to physically attend classes. Case managers at the centers can provide ongoing career coaching and help with job applications.

Meanwhile, direct financial assistance for displaced workers during their retraining period is also important. Extended unemployment benefits that last beyond traditional periods can help cover living expenses while workers upgrade their skills through longer term training programs. Targeted wage subsidies for employers who hire retrained workers getting a foothold in a new industry can further boost transitions.

Organizations undergoing technological changes also have a role to play in reskilling incumbent employees. They should provide transparency around how roles may evolve or become redundant over time so workers are aware of coming changes. Internal retraining programs focused on in-demand digital skills can help existing employees transition into newly created roles driven by technology adoption, keeping valuable institutional knowledge within the organization. Where full internal transitions are not possible, organizations should offer generous severance packages and outplacement services connecting departing employees to available training opportunities and jobs.

Governments could incentivize such organizational support through tax credits for businesses that engage in on-the-job training or fund external courses for a significant percentage of their workforce annually. Collaboration with community colleges on curriculum development ensures training aligns with emerging industry needs. This type of public-private partnership optimizes resources to support widespread, effective upskilling of displaced workers.

As automation continues, lifelong learning will become increasingly important for workers to stay employable. Governments and organizations must work together to establish an adaptive, supportive environment where workers feel empowered and equipped to continually upgrade their skills throughout their careers in response to changing job requirements. With coordinated, collaborative efforts focused on robust retraining options and financial assistance, societies can help workers successfully navigate technological disruption and transition to new opportunities.

By significantly increasing funding for well-designed retraining programs, establishing online career centers, offering direct financial assistance to displaced workers and incentivizing organizations to support upskilling, governments and organizations can play a key role in easing the disruption of technological change on workers and smoothing their transitions to emerging jobs and industries. A dedication to reskilling and lifelong learning will be vital to ensuring workers are empowered participants in our increasingly technology-driven economies.

HOW CAN GOVERNMENTS ENSURE THAT AI REGULATIONS DO NOT INFRINGE ON CIVIL LIBERTIES?

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Governments face a challenging task in regulating emerging technologies like artificial intelligence (AI) while still protecting civil liberties. There are several principles and approaches they can take to help balance these competing priorities.

First, regulations should be developed through a transparent and democratic process that involves input from technology experts, civil society groups, privacy advocates, and other stakeholders. By soliciting a wide range of perspectives, governments can craft rules that earn broad public support and address civil liberties concerns upfront. Regulations developed through closed-door processes run a higher risk of public backlash or legal challenges.

Second, governments should focus regulations on high-risk uses of AI rather than attempting to comprehensively regulate entire technologies. For example, instead of trying to regulate all uses of facial recognition, rules could target more problematic deployments like real-time mass or covert surveillance. This type of risk-based, use-centric approach allows for innovation while still curbing certain problematic applications.

Third, whenever possible, regulators should leverage existing legal frameworks like privacy laws, anti-discrimination statutes, and human rights protections instead of creating entirely new restrictions from scratch. Building on established civil liberties standards provides continuity and helps demonstrate regulations are aimed at protecting fundamental rights rather than stifling technology itself. It also gives regulators leverage from past legal precedent and jurisprudence when weighing civil liberties considerations.

Four, regulations should be based on transparent, objective metrics and programmability requirements rather than vague or open-ended standards. For example, rules around algorithmic transparency could require that high-risk AI decision systems can provide specific, technically feasible types of information to people impacted by the technology upon request. Clear, enforceable rules are less vulnerable to overbroad interpretation than ambiguous terms that risk being applied in unforeseen, rights-limiting ways during enforcement.

Five, legislators must be deliberate about including ample exemption clauses and flexibility in rules to accommodate scenarios not initially foreseen during drafting. Regulatory sandboxes, exceptions for research purposes, and mechanisms for adapting rules as technologies evolve can prevent a chilling effect on innovation while still allowing potential issues to be addressed. Strict, inflexible statutes run a greater risk of eventually conflicting with civil liberties through unintended consequences as technical capabilities advance.

Six, compliance regimes should focus more on outcomes like impact assessments, oversight boards, and channels for feedback instead of prescriptive constraints that dictate specific technical solutions or design requirements upfront. This gives developers flexibility in how to satisfy policy aims, while still maintaining oversight. Prescriptive regulations risk hindering new, rights-protecting approaches that emerge due to technical progress but do not conform to initial mandates.

Seven, enforcement should prioritize cooperation and correction over penalties to motivate voluntary compliance. Heavy-handed, punitive approaches create disincentives for transparency and run the risk of blocking good-faith attempts to address policy aims or remedy issues as understanding evolves. Civil liberties are best served through a compliance culture of openness instead of fear of regulator crackdowns.

Proportionality must be a core principle – the degree of restriction should correspond to the scale of foreseeable harm. Sweeping, far-reaching regulations for uses with ambiguous impacts require careful justification and review. Incremental approaches that start with higher-risk applications allow balancing of societal benefits, innovation effects and civil rights on a case-by-case basis, reducing the likelihood broad or precautionary rules will unduly limit liberties.

AI governance achievable through multi-stakeholder processes, focused on high-risk uses via flexible outcomes-based frameworks, built on top of established rights and overseen through cooperative compliance regimes stands the best chance of nurturing innovation while protecting civil liberties. With careful attention to these principles, governments can develop regulations that guide emerging technologies along ethical and lawful development trajectories.