Ethical technology adoption in public administration services
Disruptive Technologies (DTs) have a great yet untapped potential to boost the developing of new and more efficient Public Services. Reasons entail resource shortage in terms of competences and infrastructures, but also resistance to and lack of trust in technology. Although a recent uptake of the topic of ethical, social and legal issues related to DTs, practical guidelines to fully assess the risks of adopting DTs in Public Administrations are still missing. The ETAPAS project aims at introducing a practical framework, supported by a prototypical software platform, to offer a first-time assessment methodology capable of measuring and mitigating ethical, societal and legal risks. The project will co-design with Public Bodies a framework consisting of ethical principles, a set of measurable indicators and a legal construct for the responsible adoption of DTs. The framework will be tested and validated on four use cases in which DTs are applied to face the challenges of the Italian Ministry of Finance, Don Gnocchi Foundation, and local municipalities in Norway and Greece. Use cases’ development, as well as exploitation and dissemination activities, will be strengthened by the engagement of two Digital Innovation Hubs and their network. This will ensure ETAPAS framework wide applicability to the European Public Sector and will prove in practice how DTs can support the realisation of responsible innovative solutions of Public Services. Lessons learnt and PAs’ feedback will feed into ETAPAS final output: a governance model to allow other public organisations to replicate the methodology and adopt innovative solutions while assessing, monitoring and mitigating associated risks. ETAPAS project aims at accelerating a responsible adoption of disruptive technologies in the delivery of Public Service so that Public Administrations can reduce management costs, improve service efficiency, securely manage data assets, and foster greater citizen trust and engagement.