Denmark is known as one of the most digitalized countries in the world, with all payments taking place with cards or online and various apps for public information and services. Last week, the government announced that it is launching a large project, Danmarks Digitaliseringsstrategi (DK), to update and augment its digital systems. The ambitious program, which has been delayed for over a year, consists of 61 initiatives.

Robot entertaining technocrats. Possessed Photography at Unsplash

The project is intended to proceed on several fronts: improving welfare services for citizens, making business processes more efficient, protecting against cyberattacks, and advancing conversion to green energy. It includes telemedicine, increased use of robots, and apps for tenders for state contracts and for monitoring a business’s carbon footprint. The plan is estimated to automate public-sector 10,000 jobs over the next ten years and save businesses DKK 3 billion on data registration.

It was well received by business organizations, with the proviso that it will require many additional IT professionals. Thomas Hildebrandt, Professor of Digitalization at University of Copenhagen, also believes the project is promising but worries that a significant segment of the population, some 20 percent, is not comfortable with digital services and could be left behind. Those aren’t the only concerns.

MicroFox guarding the data warehouse

A new Digital Council will oversee and advise on the project’s implementation, and its chair is Nanna Bule, the head of Microsoft Denmark. Ingeniøren, a website on technological developments, noted that this is is an obvious conflict of interest (DK). Someone who sells large volumes of IT equipment to both the public and private sectors shouldn’t be advising the government on IT development and procurement. The Danish Society of Engineers (DK) issued the same warning, reminding MPs that both Denmark and the EU are well aware of the challenges posed by the dominant role of tech giants such as Microsoft and Google in data protection, social media, search, and apps.

Welfare from a black box

Justitia (DK), a think tank focused on constitutionality and civil rights, shares the concern about the difficulties for less IT-literate citizens in adapting to changes brought about by automation and artificial intelligence. It also addresses general issues resulting from an emphasis on technological development over individual rights, transparency, and the human context. If case-handling in the social welfare system is turned over to algorithms, the most vulnerable clients may not know how their rights and privacy are being affected.

Justitia recommends that public authorities be required to use a systematic process developed by the Data Ethics Council to analyze the likely consequences of implementing AI for concrete tasks and that the conclusions be made public. It warns that a large IT project at the Tax Authority has had many problems, partly because of an uncritical trust in automation.

Big Brother at your service

Earlier in the year, Johan Busse, the chair of the Data Ethics Council (DK), explained the ramifications of the new tax law that Parliament adopted in December. It allows the Tax Authority to gather and synthesize all the available public information about citizens. It can use content from social media, online forums, or recreational associations. It can draw on information about political positions, ethnic background, religious affiliation, or sexuality. The data will be used to generate risk profiles of citizens and businesses in order to predict behavior. If the algorithm identifies a pattern associated with tax fraud, for example, the subject will be selected for an audit.

Busse worries that this surveillance system will operate autonomously without sufficient human oversight. It will make mistakes (Copenhagen Municipality just sent invitations to a pregnancy research project (DK) to 170,000 residents who were supposed to receive requests to volunteer at the coming referendum on the EU opt-out); and it will present the same privacy issues as the tech giants do. He cautions that Parliament seems to have approved the system and policy without understanding their full ramifications. Like Justitia, he urges that research on the project be released to the public for debate and that citizens’ rights be given as much attention as technological development and cost savings. The digitalization project will only increase the potential for overreach and unintended consequences.