Public Stack

Each layer of the technology stack has its own designers, builders and organisational forms. This means that there is a slightly different dynamic between stakeholders at each layer, and therefore different possibilities for intervention and supervision.

» You can click on each of the layers to learn more….

Each digitalisation is preceded by a large number of important decisions. These decisions are made consciously and unconsciously, but resound in all layers of the stack. We use the perspectives below to make these decisions explicit.

1. All stakeholders are involved and it is clear why we optimise.

By questioning starting points and assumptions, and by understanding the rationale and objectives of technological initiatives, we know who to involve in the design process.

2. Human rights are guaranteed and public values respected.

By complying with fundamental human rights and values we guarantee the rights of current and future humans.

3. Society as a whole keeps a grip on digitalisation.

Democratising the governance and supervision of digitalisation puts society back in control.

4. The financial-economic model takes human and planet into account.

Digitalisation must respect the boundaries of people and the planet, and must be financed sustainably.

All stakeholders are involved and it is clear to what end we are optimising.

Whether it concerns an existing or a new digitalisation initiative, or larger issues relating to digitalisation, interests are always involved. A good starting point in the development of a design process is therefore to identify these interests. In what way do financial and economic considerations apply? Is the efficiency of the government important? Is particular attention paid to the sustainability of government functioning or do social or sociocultural considerations also play a role?

Based on the fundamental idea that technology is not itself neutral, it is important to properly identify these underlying interests and to make it clear what purpose we are 'optimising' (digitalising). Ownership and control also play a central role in this. Because digitalisation affects everyone, it is essential not only to identify who has an interest in an initiative, but also to understand who might be affected and involve them in the design process.

Questions

• Who does this initiative belong to and who are the other stakeholders?
• What problem is this initiative intended to solve?
• When will the problem be solved? Who defines success?
• Which parties does this initiative affect?
• In what way are all these parties involved in the initiative?
• Who determines the method?
• Why is this party taking this initiative?
• What importance seems to be decisive in this initiative?
• Have all effects been identified and discussed?

Human rights are guaranteed and public values are respected.

Digitalisation must, of course, comply with fundamental and human rights, but also with additional laws and agreements that guarantee the rights of citizens now and in the future. This allows us to assess the impact of digitalisation issues on human rights with the UN Human Rights Impact Assessment.

Fundamental rights and values ensure the existence and preservation of our public domain. The government has a special responsibility in this respect. It must in any case take care of the following three aspects to safeguard the public domain: the right to freedom of information and communication; the right to protection of privacy; and the right to orderly rules (to be drawn up by the government) for social and commercial traffic.

In the public domain, public values apply that should influence technology and digitalisation – not the other way around. These public values speak out about (the protection of) individual life, community building, and social cohesion, and they shape the democratic design and control of digitalisation. These public values are currently expressed in various ways, such as through the principles of the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights.

Questions

• How does the initiative safeguard fundamental rights?
• How are human rights guaranteed in the initiative?
• Do we take additional (inter)national agreements into account?
• In what way is society represented?
• Is the initiative in line with the sustainable development goals?
• How do we ensure the preservation and continued existence of our public domain?
• How do shared public values resonate in this initiative?

Society as a whole keeps a grip on digitalisation.

When it comes to the governance of digitalisation, it is important to look at the role that governments at different levels play. Consider the context of a European municipality: The role of Europe in relation to national governments is crucial. Technological developments are rapid and have a cross-border character. Current legislation and regulations fall short, and issues often have to be addressed in an international context. It is questionable whether national, regional or local authorities are involved in the issue. Digitalisation, as well as the impact of technology on the living environment in a broader sense, must be addressed at the municipal level, particularly with regard to the use of technology in public space.

In addition to the importance and role of governments, it is crucial to have a good eye for the role of other parties. This is not only about the role and positioning of government in relation to market parties and knowledge institutions. Social parties also play an indispensable role. Design principles for commons, as drawn up by Elinor Ostrom, can serve as inspiration in this respect as they can help us to design, understand, and evaluate social initiatives.

This new form of governance requires oversight, both of the issue itself and of the issue’s governance. Supervisors play a crucial role. It is essential that they have the mandate and the means to properly fulfil this oversight at all stages of the digitalisation initiatives. The profound role of digitalisation in society may require new forms of supervision (such as enhanced cooperation between regulators or perhaps even the appointment of a new supervisor), for example in the use of algorithms. The internal happenings of algorithms may not remain a guarded secret when they have a profound impact on our legal system, access to rights, and daily lives.

Finally, companies themselves must be enabled to exercise supervision. Only with the correct application of the principles of openness and transparency can society effectively monitor the digitalisation that concerns them.

See also: Elinor Ostrom’s 8 rules for managing the commons

Questions

• In what role(s) are the different layers of government involved?
• Who is accountable for this initiative, and to whom?
• What effects does this initiative have on the physical environment?
• How is monitoring involved at the start of the initiative?
• How is supervision involved after completion of the initiative?
• Is there clarity about the instruments and responsibilities of the relevant supervisor?
• How can the TK call the initiative to account?
• How can citizens hold the initiative to account?

The financial-economic model takes people and planet into account.

Digitalisation must respect the boundaries of people and planet and be financed sustainably. This means that we consider the costs and benefits for society. When making investment decisions, financing instruments with a digitalisation initiative must respect the boundaries of man and planet, especially when public money is involved. This is closely intertwined with the aspects of governance: all stakeholders must be represented in decisions that concern them. We address sustainability by having an eye for future generations: how are they represented?

We can approach the boundaries of the planet according to the model of Kate Raworth's doughnut economy, a model that provides a framework for mapping out the ecological footprint, origin of raw materials, working conditions and circularity. Furthermore, people occupy an essential position in Raworth's model, so that the right knowledge and skills are available to all stakeholders to deal with technology.

Questions

• Is it critical infrastructure?
• What is the financing model?
• How are public interests represented?
• How are public values safeguarded in the short and long term?
• How are risk and profit shared in society?
• Is participation in the conversation reasonably possible for all parties, and will it remain so?
• Is there clarity about the instruments and responsibilities of the relevant supervisor?
• Are all parties involved (man and planet) improving?
• What is the environmental impact of the intended technology?
• What is the production chain and is it fair?
• Are there any externalities, and if so, which ones?
• How can society monitor the initiative?

Each device, application, protocol and the ways in which they work together in the technology stack is the result of a design process. The design process determines whose thoughts and interests are digitalised. In short: the design process has a decisive influence on how the digitalisation is given form.

A lot of research has been done into design processes and there are many methods that address the characteristics of a good design process.

• Co-creation: Co-creation is a design method that can make challenges of public research into assets. In market research, co-creation has been widely championed as a sound business practice that helps to ensure relevance to customers and an economic reward for corporations. While that is oſten true, co-creation can also be leveraged to spur collaboration, include a variety of voices, democratise the development process, provide citizens with skills and knowledge, and ultimately help to give citizens agency to implement solutions themselves and alongside public administrations. All of these attributes are beneficial when designing for society, and this makes co-creation a strong method for undertaking public research and public participation. Examples include Cities4people, Metamorphosis, BigPicnic, and E-Choupal.
• Citizen science: Also known as crowd science, crowd-sourced science, civic science, volunteer monitoring or networked science is scientific research conducted, in whole or in part, by amateur (or nonprofessional) scientists. Citizen science is sometimes described as "public participation in scientific research", participatory monitoring and participatory action research. This approach is not limited to the ‘natural sciences’ but can also be applied to design, problem solving, and social sciences. Examples include Hollandse Luchten, Making Sense, Zooniverse, and Marine LitterWatch.
• Public research: This mode of research prioritises public interest as the guiding principle of innovation, and therefore sees society as its research community. If we want to develop and design for society, society needs to be included in that process. Public research is fundamentally interdisciplinary because it brings together citizens from all walks of life to articulate and address shared matters of concern. Universities, non-profits, and public agencies oſten undertake public research.
• Public participation refers to the involvement of citizens and civil society in public and governmental affairs. Meetups, deliberation & debate, and co-creation sessions oſten help to facilitate this process. Examples include Taiwan’s public policy participation platform and various participatory budgeting initiatives (such as those in Helsinki and Barcelona).

The Knowledge and Innovation Agenda for the Creative Industry 2020-2023 offers valuable points of references for design methodologies (Key Enabling Methodologies) that can help to systematically involve stakeholders, set a design goal or test an idea.

What constitutes a good design process depends on a number of characteristics. These characteristics should be examined and agreed upon before the design process starts. This happens in the bottom layers of the stack: the foundation.

We distinguish between different layers within the technology stack that are constantly cooperating and communicating with each other. Together they provide the services and digitalization. But each layer has its own designers, builders and organisational forms. This means that there is a slightly different dynamic between stakeholders at each layer, and therefore different possibilities for intervention and supervision. We bring the technology stack closer and see that in the core, the white square, different layers can be distinguished.

The layers of the technology stack are connected by protocols and standards, making communication and data exchange possible. Data and algorithms are at play at each layer of the tech stack, which, as a whole, provides a service for the users. All layers must have robust security against misuse. The aspects above, which affect the entire technology stack, we call context layers; they are to the tech stack what cement is to the bricks in a wall. When designing technology, it is important to explicitly include these context layers in the design process.

In practice, technology is often used as a service, manifesting itself across all layers of the technological stack, in multiple contexts and on different devices. An everyday example of this is listening to a song via Spotify. The Spotify app on your phone has access to your headphones via the operating system and firmware so you can hear the song. The song itself is often streamed from a data centre over the Internet infrastructure.

Another example is Sonos: a service that allows you to listen to music in several places in your home. The service consists of speakers and a number of apps to control the speakers. That means that the speakers in your home don’t function as old-fashioned speakers that you just plug in; there is a whole Sonos technology stack that is invisible but ensures your Sonos speakers function.

These kinds of services play an ever-increasing role in society and raise new questions about how the technology stack can best be designed to serve society and its citizens and avoid unwanted dependencies.

Example use case: Video Conferencing

The protection of technology has become increasingly important and complicated. Technology has become embedded in a number of networks and has been given a core task in essential societal functions.

Security is about regulating access: after all, if your information is in a safe on the ocean floor, it is secure, but not accessible. The right people have to be able to access certain data while everyone else cannot.

Safety aspects play on all layers of the technology stack. Cyber-security investigates how computer networks can be attacked with ever smarter methods and techniques and, in response, tries to make the networks and computers more resilient: an ongoing game of cat and mouse. Higher up in the stack, on the layers of operating systems and applications, there are often errors in the code that can be exploited, for example, to gain unauthorised access or control over a computer or network.

Protocols and standards form the cement between the different layers in the technology stack. A protocol describes the agreements on the exchange of data. When we standardise such a protocol into an 'open standard', it is possible for others to use this standard. This prevents a so-called lock-in, in which users are made dependent on a certain product or service. Technology standards are usually drawn up in an international context by organisations such as the IETF and the ITU. These organisations have a multi-stakeholder approach in which companies, knowledge institutes, civil society organisations and governments jointly determine what a standard should look like.

An example of an open standard is e-mail: if they know your e-mail address, anyone in the world can send you an e-mail with any computer. Many messaging services (such as WhatsApp and Telegram) use their own closed protocol. As a result, you can only send messages if you use a device that is supported by these companies and you connect to their services.

Data is used by all layers of the technology stack. There are different types of data:

• Metadata is data that describes other data: for example the time at which a message was sent, the sender of the message, or the location from which the message is sent.
• Personal data is data that can be linked to a person.
• Open data is data that is shared openly under certain conditions so that everyone can use it.

A lot of data contains (directly or indirectly) information about behaviour: where we are going, what we find exciting, what we don't understand. But data can also contain information about who we interact with, whether we are healthy or sick, what we are sensitive to and what we want to buy. Algorithms recognise patterns in all of this data. Data and algorithms are needed to make services work and can form the basis of scientific research, but can also be misused for manipulation and influence. The collection of data and the use of algorithms involve risk. Consider the example of algorithms that make predictions or automate decision-making. It is crucial to design and embed data and algorithms in such a way that fundamental and human rights, as well as transparency and privacy, are safeguarded, possibly through data trusts, data cooperatives or data commons. A great deal of research is also being done into the open and comprehensible publication and monitoring of algorithms.

Let's take a closer look at the tech layers. These are the physical and virtual components — the hardware and software — that make up our technologies. At the basis is the infrastructure. Think, for example, of internet cables at the bottom of the sea and GPS satellites in space. Our devices use this infrastructure for all kinds of functionality. Those devices run firmware and drivers that enable the use of the device for the operating system. At the very top of the stack lies the application layer, which includes, for example, the web browser and the apps on our phones. The application layer is what we are able to see when we use the device.

The application layer is the most visible, because it contains the software we interact with: an app on a smartphone, a video calling service, or text editor on a laptop. The web browser is also an application but it occupies a special place. Most applications focus on a specific task such as sending messages or editing photos, but the web browser makes it possible to use a wide range of different services.

We control most applications via touchscreen, keyboard, and mouse. But some applications also function in the background, and interaction takes place indirectly and often unconsciously. Think of Google Maps, or 'smart assistants' such as Google Assistant or Apple's Siri, or the smart doorbell.

Applications always run on an operating system: software that ensures that different parts of a device work together properly and are accessible to the applications. The operating system ensures that the keyboard transmits the correct letters to the processor and the screen and that files can be stored on the hard disk. Examples of operating systems are Apple iOS, Microsoft Windows 10 and Linux.

There are many devices with an invisible or hidden operating system. Wifi routers, smart energy meters, a sports watch, the in-car entertainment system – they all have operating systems.

The firmware is one of the most invisible layers, linking the physical components of a device and its operating system. If you press the letter 'a' on a keyboard, the firmware converts it into a digital message that can be processed by the operating system. Firmware runs directly on the hardware and after production is often impossible to modify. Manufacturers may also take measures to prevent the firmware from being updated by the owner of the device.

Slightly more complex parts of devices have drivers. These drivers are pieces of software that form a similar function to firmware, but they can be updated. Drivers ensure that the operating system on the device needs to know as few technical details as possible of the various components. Take USB drives as an example: drivers ensures that the operating system can access each USB drive you attach to your computer, regardless of which brand it is.

Equipment includes all of the devices we use ourselves, such as laptops, tablets, and smartphones as well as the accompanying hardware we need such as monitors, styluses and chargers. More and more devices are being digitalised. Household appliances such as alarm clocks, refrigerators, toasters and washing machines are being connected to the Internet according to a trend known as Internet of Things or IoT. This creates more possibilities for new functionalities, but it also introduces new dependencies and raises new questions regarding security, access to the control of the device, and control over the data that is generated.

Infrastructure connects and supports all layers in the technology stack. It concerns network infrastructure, such as internet cables and telephone masts for 4G. Infrastructure ensures that domain names work and are secured. GPS satellites enable positioning on smartphones and navigation equipment. Data centres store our data and ensure that services are available. These many hundreds of buildings containing many thousands of computers make up the 'cloud'.

Managers of nodes in the network infrastructure have great influence and responsibility over the security of networks and data. They can also determine whether certain traffic or use is given priority. Just as the Internet has an international character, the physical infrastructure that supports our digital activity is also global in nature.

In the public stack, we view the ‘user’ as a citizen in a democratic society – not as a consumer in a business model or a subject of a state. The other layers of the public stack all play a part in shaping this relationship that determines whose interests are being served by technology.

The citizen sits at the top of the public stack. This involves our interaction with technology – how we use it, and how it uses us. The citizen layer contains much of what is sensed by us, like the interfaces of websites or the lever on that smart toaster.

But there are also parts of the citizen layer that are harder to see: the influence media has on our thoughts; the access we do or do not have based on algorithmic decisions; and most fundamentally, how the user is positioned in relation to the rest of the stack.