Dawn Arnold: Digital Destiny?

Today I had the opportunity to attend the “Toward a Digital Society / Vers une société digitale” conversation along with 100+ very committed citizens from all over NB. These citizens firmly and fervently believe that our province has a unique opportunity to re-capture its international leadership position in the digital space by leveraging its IT talent, research facilities and world class telecom infrastructure. It was all quite fascinating particularly since I hadn’t even heard of Open Data/Open Government until a couple of weeks ago.

The invitation came with a link to this story about Estonia: You may have heard of the CBC documentary “Code Kids” that was inspired by the Estonian education system. A group of 12 NBers went to Estonia to learn more about their situation and how the Maritimes (which has a very similar population 1.3 million vs 1.9 million) might be able to benefit from their learnings. Today was about sharing what they learned and changing the conversation in our province (I don’t know about you, but I need it to change…all this doom and gloom is not doing any of us any good!).

So, Estonia has managed to innovate at the intersection of technology and personal life, creating huge savings and opportunities. We talked about both the advantages our province has to propel us forward and also some of our barriers. We have so many similarities (population; open and generous people, willing to mentor and give; mostly trees and farmland). It was stated many times though that we need to move things along quickly…we need to leap frog this. There are fundamentally different rules with e-government and as we all know, big changes bring fear and anxiety. BUT the difference is that the Estonian model puts citizens in control. They own their own data. The idea is to empower all citizens equally to take control of improving our province and "being" the change.

Basically, each Estonian has a unique number that they use for everything (driver's licences to prescription drugs, report cards to bank cards). It is actually illegal for anyone to ask you to provide the same information more than once! Citizens control the access to their own information and there is a footprint if anyone else accesses it. Can you imagine no longer having to fill out those annoying forms! Can you imagine getting your tax refund the next day (and it only taking 6 minutes to complete your tax form?).

So, what would need to happen for NB to get on board? 1. Political will. 2. Citizen engagement. 3. Private (not government) buy-in.

NB is actually very well placed from an infrastructure point of view already. Service NB was a huge leader when they went on-line in 1999, but the rest of the world has caught up to us on many fronts since that time. (Did you know that land titles in NB are 100% electronic, as are personal property searches. Our Corporate registry is 98.2% on-line, vital statistics are 41% on-line and apparently fish and wildlife licences are almost there. ) The point is to have a single digital ID for all citizens with and EMV chip (like you have in your credit card).

What was interesting to me over the day was the idea that this actually enhances our privacy on many fronts. I know that this may seem counterintuitive, but think about what you do right now. You may give your information to many different government offices (Health, Transportation, Employment, etc.), you sign up for a Chapters account, PayPal, you pay your bills on-line (telephone, power, mortgage), etc. All of these different organizations already have your information…as do many places you probably don’t even know about (and think of those civil servant laptops with databases that go missing!). Imagine if you didn’t need to give it all out any more and you controlled precisely who could access it. You could vote on-line during elections, but you could also vote (or weigh in) on different legislation. Your health could be monitored and your doctor would have access (when you grant it) to your entire health record. You could, if you wanted, access your blood test/x-ray immediately. You wouldn’t just lose your records when your doctor moves or retires. There are enormous savings on the health front (and, as a reminder, NB has a $2.6 billion health budget), often through remote diagnostics (there are only 2 hospitals in all of Estonia…they are smaller geographically though…45,227 km² as opposed to our 72,908 km²). This is a way of democratizing health care (allowing for much more personalized treatment plans…there are enormous private sector innovation opportunities here).

The other amazing thing about all of this is the spin offs. One innovation that was mentioned a couple of times today was GIS technology. Can you imagine if the US Army had decided not to share this? (There would be more marriage break ups, I’m pretty sure!) Open source data in the way that Estonia has developed it, creates all kinds of economic spin-offs…almost all Estonians have their own small business. They do not rely on the government. It also saves tons of cash (that we don’t have!). Estonia spends $50 million a year on IT, whereas NB spends $250 million+!

Three interesting things I learned about Estonia: 1. They have a choir festival (as a result of the singing revolution) and almost all of the population is in a choir! 2. They have zero tolerance for drinking and driving and public transportation is free. 3. Free Wi-Fi is a basic human right!

Now, for those of you who are afraid of security with all of this, apparently they have had no serious security breaches, but they do have a cyber-defence league (comprised of volunteers). Every single person that accesses your information leaves a footprint…the police officer that runs your licence for speeding, the civil servant that is auditing your taxes…they must sign in using their own personal code. (I think the thing that I personally love almost most of all is the fact that there would be no more anonymous on-line postings...you've heard me on this before, but I believe that if you have something to say, you should own it and attach your name....but I digress!)

Of course, education is an enormous part of all of this. Being a digital citizen starts in elementary school. Another interesting message that I really appreciated today was the idea of encouraging our kids to know that they are a part of their own future…we need to empower them to take control of that future. (A great idea would be for them to attend Youth Startup Weekend)

So, to wrap up, here are the benefits:

Citizens