2019 - A Human-Centric Digital Manifesto for Europe How the Digital Transformation Can Serve the Public Interest - Ursula Pachl & Pamela Valenti

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Introduction

Over the past decade, new technologies have begun to alter societies dramatically. Entire industries — education, transportation, media, finance, healthcare, publishing — as well as trust in democratic institutions, governance and the very notion of open society are being turned upside down by the digital revolution. Much of what we took for granted — the nature of work, individual rights, the legitimacy of elites, and even what it means to be human — is being questioned across the world by digital transformations.

Despite the original promise of a web based on a decentralized architecture, today’s digital space has become intensely centralized. Over the past ten years, the network effect has enabled tech superpowers to gain astonishing power and wealth, often based on business models that profit from the commercial appropriation of users’ data.

Digital technologies have fundamentally altered the mechanisms through which individuals encounter and consume information and services, engage and communicate with other individuals and with institutions, form self-identities and foster communities. They have also provided new means for individuals to engage with the societal and political spheres, through shared causes and citizen-driven movements. A shift in the dynamics of societal participation can be a force for progressive change towards a more efficient form of organization, or at least a more inclusive or representative one. However, fast and disruptive changes also pose existential challenges to institutions that were conceived in the 20th century but seem to have lost touch with this new reality.

The adverse consequences of the digital revolution – surveillance capitalism based on the exploitation of our personal data; the spread of anonymous online abuse; the growing power of big data monopolies; the decline of mainstream media; orchestrated disinformation and online propaganda; unaccountable algorithmic segregation dividing us into introverted opinion bubbles; an increasing number of surveillance measures under the pretext of fighting against criminal networks; the unaccountable extension of State powers, which is justified as necessary to deal with emerging threats; the impact of machine-learning, automated decision making and smart automation on employment, access to culture1 and privacy2 — all of these challenge the resilience of open and democratic societies.

The disruption of new technologies has triggered new challenges for institutions and regulators, who re increasingly asked to address the impact of the digital revolution on society, protect users’ rights and agency, and establish the conditions for an open and fair digital market to flourish and stimulate innovation in the public interest. To protect the rights of the people from technological forces that often seem both uncontrollable and unaccountable, the EU, its Member States and civil society need to address comprehensively a set of key questions affecting European democracies and societies.

For the EU to innovate and promote governance processes that are more inclusive and encourage people to participate in policymaking, it needs to diversify the input into the debate around the European digital agenda, bringing together cuttingedge knowledge, different sectoral perspectives and innovative thinking that goes beyond past institutional norms. For this reason, the Open Society European Policy Institute (OSEPI) and The European Consumer Organization (BEUC) joined forces to convene a diverse group of civil society representatives to discuss how Europe can shape the next decade of digital transformation in the public interest. During a first meeting with senior EU officials in November 2018, the group called on the European Commission to promote a humancentric approach to the digital transformation in the preparation of the post-2019 EU agenda.

The Sibiu Declaration of May 9 2019 was an important first step in this direction, as EU Member States jointly stressed the need to uphold the principle of fairness in the digital transformation, and committed to help the most vulnerable in Europe and put people before politics.3 In June, the Council conclusions on the future of a highly digitised EU went even further by emphasizing the crucial role of a human-centric approach that respects the Charter of Fundamental Rights and ensures respect for privacy, data protection rights and intellectual property rights as well as rules of product safety and liability.4

Europe is now faced with the dramatic challenge, responsibility and opportunity of pioneering a better digital society and bringing human agency back to the centre of innovation, growth and social cohesion. To do so, the next European Commission will need to:

a) Focus on the societal impact of digital technology, looking beyond the single market and individual privacy to develop a European model of digital transformation predicated on human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, rule of law, human rights, solidarity, justice, inclusion and non-discrimination;

b) Strongly commit to rights-based policies and regulation, particularly at a time when tech giants increasingly push forward narratives and commitments on ethics in what seems like an attempt to dodge issues of public accountability and societal interest (i.e. ‘ethics washing’). Principles informing EU policymaking in the digital sphere should build on the EU Fundamental Rights framework, and expand it to ensure that existing offline rights are protected online;

c) Ensure that transparency, accountability and participation underpin the development of human-centric digital policies in Europe. The genuine, meaningful involvement of civil society in the development of the next digital agenda for Europe will be critical to designing and implementing policies and regulation that serve the public interest and foster open societies.

This paper expands on these three overarching recommendations by identifying eight key areas of focus for the next Commission. Based on contributions from a diverse group of civil society representatives, it addresses specific concerns and suggests possible ways of addressing them.

Pamela Valenti,

Open Society European Policy Institute

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1 e.g., the introduction of upload filters in copyright and terrorist content regulation.

2 e.g., e-evidence and data retention

3 European Council, Sibiu Declaration on the future of Europe, May 9 2019.

4 Council of the European Union, Transport, Telecommunications and Energy Council Conclusions on the ‘Future of a highly digitised Europe beyond 2020: Boosting digital and economic competitiveness across the Union and digital cohesion’, June 7 2019.

Enlaces

URL: https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/a-human-centric-digital-manifesto-for-europe

Wayback Machine: http://web.archive.org/web/20220120064540/https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/publications/a-human-centric-digital-manifesto-for-europe