Competency 2 of 8 - Risks
“A digital era public service leader can anticipate and mitigate the privacy, security and ethical risks that are inherent to governing in a digital era."
Background to this competency
For over a century optimists have predicted that information technologies will enable governments to do better - save costs, be more efficient and effective, deliver more personalised services. Whilst many of these predictions have came true, one problem has been consistently underestimated: the possibility that new technologies might subject citizens to new and previously unknown risks and harms, or undermine trust in public institutions.
A quarter century into the internet revolution, these risks and harms are all too apparent and permeate a wide range of government activities. From foreign-power attempts to distort elections to the use of potentially biased algorithms to sentence convicted criminals, harmful mistakes and problems are an everyday story.
Meaning of the competency
The heart of this competency is the idea that public service leaders must be aware of the likely privacy, security and ethical risks that are specifically inherent to using digital systems as part of government.
It is worth noting that the digital aspect of these risks is only one side of them - public servants need to watch for making errors relating to privacy, security and ethics in all their work. But the affordances of digital technology systems create new vectors of risks on which public servants should be made aware.
To develop this competency, senior public servants cannot be expected to acquire deep expertise across all of these risk areas. But they need to know when and how to call upon relevant experts, and how to form an assessment of whether or not the expert commentary is trustworthy or sufficiently comprehensive.
Why was this competency developed and agreed?
Our list of 8 core competencies is designed to sit alongside current, existing competencies often taught in schools of public administration or public policy. All eight competencies therefore represent capabilities that are either not taught to current and future public servants or capabilities that require some updating to be effective in the digital era.
Senior public servants can make decisions about the use of digital systems that create risks or harm for people without realising that this is what they've done. It is important that the next generation of leaders has a minimum set of skills to enable them to spot predictable problems such as avoidable security breaches, and the engineering of problematic biases into government services.
Reading Suggestion
'Introduction to Cyber Security' - Future Learn
Understanding artificial intelligence ethics and safety - Dr David Leslie
What Happens When Data Fails - GovLoop