The Scottish Government has published its new plan to create an ‘ethical digital nation.’

Titled Building Trust in the Digital Era: Achieving Scotland’s Aspirations as an Ethical Digital Nation, the report details the importance of maintaining ethics in the face of a digitising world. 

The report identified key themes Scotland needs to address in order to launch the country into the digital era in an ethical and sustainable way. 

Digital Inclusion

Digital inclusion was a main factor in keeping Scotland’s digital future ethical. 

While digitisation and digital transformation can help make the world more accessible and fair, it can often go just the opposite as well. 

“For one thing, access to digital, and the skills to use it, are unevenly distributed and may potentially exacerbate inequalities, particularly as services have moved to ‘digital first,’” the report said. 

Checking decision making algorithms in the public and private sectors is essential – the report encouraged external audits to ensure transparency. 

Having a ‘human in the loop’ when implementing automated decision making was a major factor that the report encouraged would allow for “better situation judgement” on major decisions. 

Infrastructure was also a major factor in digital inclusivity. Unequal access to broadband and phone services could hold entire regions of Scotland back. 

Further, disabilities, a lack of education, and language barriers could make the shift to ‘digital by default’ exacerbate current inequalities. 

The cost of living crisis is already depleting the population’s disposable income, which is also a major factor in the technology they can access. 

Public Trust

Ensuring public trust in the use of data and digital technology was a major theme throughout the report, and needs to be “at the forefront of all decision making.”

Top-down legislation and regulation is vital in order to protect people’s privacy while allowing data to be collected and used for good. 

The report states that a ‘National Digital Guardian’ needs to be established to address the gaps in the governing of digital innovations, as it is often unclear what institutions are formally in charge of regulation. 

Multiple strategies for involving citizens should be pursued, rule of law and standards must be adhered to through transparency, and honest conversations about difficult trade offs must be had.

Continued investment in cybersecurity capacity is essential and given the workforce shortage, automated tech will have to play a role, so it is also vital to produce ethical tech in this regard. 

Another key area of public trust is the proportional use of monitoring and surveillance technology across the public and private sectors. A need to establish ‘ethical limits’ to these technologies was noted in the report. 

A ‘Green’ Digital Scotland 

“Scotland is leading the way in green tech,” according to the report. 

Recommendations to keep Scotland on this path included investing in e-waste recycling facilities, and mandating that digital products allow for repair and recycling. 

Of course, working with businesses to reduce carbon emissions was also a top priority listed in the report. 

The Future of Work

The report called for more data on how the government can track the overall effects of digital transformation. 

While the tech sector is growing, these jobs can be classified as ‘elite’ and may not contribute to the benefit of the majority of the public. 

An increased use of automation may appear as a threat to certain jobs, and an increase in surveillance and monitoring may impact worker’s autonomy.

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Achieving a balance by involving the public in decision making is the goal set out in the report.

Algorithms and Data

While ethics was the main theme of the entire report, the use of algorithms and data to inform decision making is a major point of moral contention across the world. 

Algorithms require human oversight and “appropriate, potentially participator governance” to ensure they are applied fairly and equitably. 

Alrognirthims should also be explained and transparent – “there should always be a way to determine how a decision was made.”

External audits and human sense checks were the practical recommendations made to achieve ethical goals. 

Data protection laws, which are likely to change, must also be adhered to as data is collected and used to, hopefully, help decision making processes fair and equitable.

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