Recommending Areas for U.S. Leadership and Action to Advance DPI Development

By

Allison Price

,

Silvana Rodriguez

, and

Alberto Rodríguez

In this final article of the research collection, Infrastructure for the Digital Age, experts weigh in on questions exploring the potential for digital public infrastructure (DPI) to support a healthier digital environment in the United States through essential services and frameworks that are open, inclusive, and adaptable. Each article summarizes major themes from experts' responses to a prompt, followed by a curated collection of expert insights.

Prompt: In which areas do we need to see U.S. leadership and collaboration, whether at home or overseas (as part of multilateral initiatives or other) to foster safe and effective DPI implementation? What domestic policies could the U.S. government pursue to facilitate a cohesive approach to DPI?

This research collection was born out of the sense that the next ten years present a window of opportunity to connect the United States' digital priorities on the global stage to much-needed leadership and vision at home. While it remains to be seen how the incoming administration will approach digital transformation, two themes frame this final article about where we hope to see U.S. policy, collaboration, and action going forward:

• Think globally, act locally. Tech development at home and overseas can be reinforcing, parallel efforts. The United States needs to think critically about how the objectives espoused in international forums and lessons learned from DPI projects around the world, some of which receive U.S. financial support, may or may not apply at home. In turn, how the United States decides to approach its own digital infrastructure will have implications far beyond its borders as a trusted supplier of technology - better yet, open and replicable technology - and a political heavyweight in a rapidly changing global context.
• Strike a balance. There are no easy answers or one-size-fits-all solutions. Decision-makers must collaborate with others, specifically including working with international partners and soliciting cross-sector expertise, for the best chance to strike a balanced and nuanced approach between the competing players and complicated dynamics in the tech space. The U.S. tech industry's dominance at home and in global markets may be a heavy factor in efforts to navigate private sector innovation, the public interest, incentive alignment, and geopolitical and economic interests. But that isn't a reason to not work across sectors to pursue smarter tech policy and a vision for a future that works for everyone.

Avenues for U.S. Leadership Overseas

Over the past year, the United States has increasingly conveyed recognition of a DPI approach, including through the Pact for the Future recently adopted at the United Nations, the U.S. International Cyberspace and Digital Policy Strategy, and in G7 and G20 declarations. While important, U.S. political and funding support is largely viewed through an international development lens without a clear tie-in to efforts taking place at home. Some experts question whether such U.S. messaging is particularly effective given that the push for DPI has largely been led and modeled by other countries that can point to domestic examples; that the United States takes a deregulatory approach to tech innovation; and that U.S. private firms to a large extent dominate the global tech market. For example, in terms of search engines and social media platforms alone, U.S. and Chinese private sector firms dominate the space.

Still, should the United States decide to lean forward on DPI, there is general agreement it has an opportunity to play a beneficial leadership role. At the international level, this could mean participating in multilateral partnerships and forums, global initiatives, and standard-setting bodies to:

• Debate and shape core governance principles and safeguards.
• Develop global standards for DPI and explore ways to facilitate open collaboration.
• Support and co-finance regional and global DPI efforts.
• Invest in multistakeholder mechanisms to implement DPI and AI safeguards.
• Facilitate the exchange of best practices.
• Promote multistakeholder governance models.
• Strengthen bedrock accountability mechanisms by building capacity in national judicial sectors and supporting regional human rights systems.

Lead by Example at Home

Tellingly, experts overwhelmingly call for the United States to lead by example with tangible domestic instances of DPI principles in action. One relatively easy fix is simply recognizing solutions that don't label themselves as being DPI (such as Colorado's myColorado app, managed by Colorado Digital Service, and the open source voting system VotingWorks). The fact is, pockets of the tech community in this country are already working on many pilots and programs that could be recognized as foundational building blocks, a digital public good, or early stages of DPI.

On a deeper level, leading by example at home will require overcoming a major point of tension. There is a general resistance in the United States to advancing the notion of public goods, even in situations where the market's inability to provide needed services profitably leads to either a lack of service coverage or substandard solutions.

A combination of research, investment, and policy may be needed to overcome this hurdle. What we know for sure is that meaningful progress at home will require multiple lines of effort working in tandem. These could include:

• Developing a national DPI strategy focused on interoperability, privacy, and integration across sectors and jurisdictions.
• Creating a national DPI task force with representatives from federal, state, and local governments and across key sectors.
• Pursuing legal and regulatory frameworks that could include national privacy protections; data supply chain legislation; protections against cybercrime and identity theft; measures to crack down on monopolies; and increased regulatory clarity and sandboxes for DPI component solutions.
• Encouraging cross-sector participation in building and using DPI, including through financial incentives and the creation of partnerships and innovation hubs.
• Financing DPI projects, using public funds and possibly through the creation of a digital development bank to coordinate across public and private sectors. There are various ways to finance the work; what's important is that it be sustainable.
• Establishing interoperability standards and microservices as a government architecture framework.
• Directing the National Institute of Standards and Technology to develop frameworks emphasizing interoperability and other characteristics of DPI components.
• Leveraging the government's procurement power to steer the developer community toward building more DPI component solutions and making those widely accessible.
• Investing in broadband expansion, digital literacy, and safety efforts to increase inclusivity, as well as general capacity building.
• Increasing the capacity of government by recruiting and training civil servants with technical expertise.
• Starting small with a use case that individuals would willingly adopt to solve a pain point. For example, digital ID is often a first step that could form the basis for subsequent solutions, such as helping Americans access benefits and get back on their feet quickly after a natural disaster or health care crisis.
• Engaging citizens to ensure that DPI is designed with users at the core and that it is rolled out coherently and used effectively by all.
• Supporting further research into related topics, such as interoperability standards, open source development, and composable secure systems and environments.

Artificial Intelligence and Geopolitical Challenges

A key area for further exploration is articulating the implications of a DPI approach for AI development, given the inherent overlaps with data sharing infrastructures. At its core, integrating technologies such as AI is fundamental to the vision of DPI as a foundation for digital government and economies; linking the two concepts can help frame the AI debate in terms of public values. Further, evolving developments - including the growing policy interest in public AI, calls to consider the data layers necessary for many applications as part of DPI (such as climate and public health data), and the geopolitical implications of AI - all underscore that the United States can't afford to forgo the DPI debate at home.

In a related area for further consideration, many experts argue that the United States needs to drive leadership and collaboration on responsible DPI and help seed an ecosystem of rights-respecting technologies. Not to do so risks leaving a vacuum that autocratic nations pushing harmful digital alternatives could exploit. On the plus side, DPI could help give implementing countries a certain level of sovereignty and independence in managing their core digital services, buffering the potential impact of global political dynamics and decreasing reliance on foreign providers. One expert noted this may help U.S. firms and geopolitical interests in some places but hurt its financial interests in others. That is a potential trade-off that will have to be factored in when trying to strike the right balance on DPI for U.S. interests.

A Curated Collection of Expert Insights

Prompt: In which areas do we need to see U.S. leadership and collaboration, whether at home or overseas (as part of multilateral initiatives or other) to foster safe and effective DPI implementation? What domestic policies could the U.S. government pursue to facilitate a cohesive approach to DPI?

Is the U.S. the Right Messenger? The Call to Lead by Example at Home

Akash Kapur, Senior Fellow at New America and The GovLab, and Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University

The single biggest way the U.S. could help foster more responsible DPI around the world is through leading by example. At the moment, U.S. messages of support for a more inclusive, open, and public digital infrastructure are undercut by the extent of private sector capture and concentration within the U.S.-and the extent to which that concentration of power then radiates around the world. In short, the U.S. is a flawed messenger in this area, and a more concerted effort to crack down on monopolies in the U.S., protect privacy (ideally through a national bill), and generally promote technology for the public good would go a long way-both rhetorically and substantively-to boosting the prospects for DPI in the Global South and elsewhere.

Ethan Zuckerman, Professor and Director of the Digital Public Infrastructure Initiative at UMass Amherst

The concentration of media power in search engines and social media platforms requires support for alternative infrastructures. The concentration of power is largely within U.S. and Chinese firms, so it's probably not best for the U.S. to lead this effort to challenge the concentration. But a multinational effort led by European nations, or democratic Global South nations, like Brazil, would benefit enormously from U.S. support and sign on.

David Eaves, Professor and Deputy Director in Digital Government at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Presently the story of DPI is one that is being led by the Global South. America has few DPI stories it can point to demonstrate its domestic capacity and thus serve as a foundation for international leadership. In some ways, and perhaps uncomfortably so, U.S. leadership isn't *needed*. But that isn't to say the U.S. leadership couldn't be constructive and helpful and thus *desirable*. Quite the opposite.

A clear articulation of what helps make DPI safe and effective (and inclusive) by the U.S. government would be helpful. Tangible domestic examples of those principles in action would be even more helpful. Capital and other support, both indirect and direct, of DPI efforts by emerging markets would also be effective.

Considering the Geopolitical Implications and Tradeoffs

Lacey Strahm, Policy Lead at OpenMined

Collaboration and leadership between the world's leading democracies is crucial to fostering safe and effective DPI implementation. The United States should organize this block of democracies and use its influence to ensure participant nations around the world are uplifting and pioneering safe and effective DPI implementation. Additionally, the United States should lead by example and ensure its domestic DPI implementation is being rolled out coherently and used effectively by all members of the public.

To ensure there are enough Democratic-leaning solutions available for participant nations to pioneer, the United States should deliberately encourage and seed an ecosystem of rights-respecting and democracy-affirming technologies. This can look like incentivizing technologies to be made transparently, in the open, and with both the wisdom to work with previous technologies as well as the foresight to interoperate with the technologies of tomorrow. These incentivizing activities should not just take place in the private sector with established organizations but should also be inclusive of academics and universities where eager students may hatch revolutionary start-ups or may remain in institutions of higher learning to advance the state-of-the-art in a particular field.

In the absence of such strong, intentional U.S.-driven leadership and collaborations, autocratic regimes will step in and peddle DPI that can do more harm than good.

David Eaves, Professor and Deputy Director in Digital Government at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

Part of the DPI story is about enabling countries to assert sovereignty and independence over the key systems needed to run a digital era society. Helping foster DPI in new markets will create new opportunities for U.S. firms. It should also lessen leverage great powers have over some countries as they choose to manage this infrastructure themselves and not rely on foreign providers. This will help America's geopolitical interests in some places, but hurt its financial interest in others. How it chooses to fight those changes will reveal a lot about America's core interests to many emerging market leaders.

Finding Areas Ripe for Global Leadership

Diana Zamora, Director of Global Public Policy at Mastercard

The U.S. International Cyberspace & Digital Policy Strategy highlights the risk of countries embracing digital sovereignty and protectionism, promoting market access barriers, restricting cross-border data, and preferencing domestic firms. Understanding how DPI could generate market distortions and building safeguards that preserve space for the private sector to operate and innovate is essential.

Functionally, this will require the United States to lean into DPI debates in key global forums such as the G20, G7, United Nations, and World Bank, and assert a point of view that emphasizes the need for DPI with market discipline. It can push for core principles to govern DPI, highlighting the Business 20 DPI principles as safeguards to protect against market distortions. This is essential for DPI discussions related to the UN Global Digital Compact and at the International Telecommunications Union.

Laura Bingham, Professor and Executive Director at the Institute for Law, Innovation & Technology at Temple University

Leadership and collaboration on strengthening the rule of law and access to justice, both at home and overseas, is a critical area. In a period of intense principles, standards, and best practice development, the United States' voice has been muted on the relevance and applicability of international human rights and the need to support human rights mechanisms. It has also been muted on the need to build capacity in regional human rights systems and in national judicial sectors to effectively enforce the rule of law and hold governments accountable to meeting the standards they are setting down, anchoring those standards in domestic constitutional and statutory frameworks. Multilateral debates about DPI governance and regulatory frameworks sidestep the foundational mechanisms-like independent courts-needed to protect democracy structurally in the context of massive social shifts brought on by digital transformation, especially in lower and middle income economies in the Global South.

In addition to leadership on bedrock accountability structures, investments by the United States (including financial support) are needed to support meaningful multistakeholder mechanisms at the international level to carry forward the current safeguards initiatives on both DPI and AI from principles to practical implementation.

Yolanda Martínez, Practice Manager for Digital Development in Latin America and the Caribbean at The World Bank

Government leadership and collaboration are essential in areas such as user-centric service design, open source communities of practice, data privacy and security, interoperability standards, inclusive access, public-private partnerships, research and development to foster safe and effective Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) implementation. Domestically, this involves establishing regulatory frameworks, promoting digital equity, and incentivizing private sector involvement in using national DPI-for instance-to scale access to digital financial services. Internationally, it requires participation in global initiatives, standard-setting bodies, and multilateral partnerships to develop and co-finance regional and global DPIs-e.g. NIIS & X-Road; implementation frameworks like GovStack Global and DPI Safeguards; and sharing best practices. By leading these efforts, countries can enhance DPI security and effectiveness, benefiting both domestic and global communities.

Daniel Abadie, Senior Technical Advisor at the Centre for Digital Public Infrastructure

The U.S. can play a leading role in:

• Developing and promoting global standards for DPI.
• Engaging with international /multilateral organizations to support global DPI programs.
• Promoting inclusive government models that involve multiple stakeholders, including civil society, private sector, academia and public sector in DPI decision-making processes.

Contemplating Measures for a More Cohesive Domestic Approach

Yolanda Martínez, Practice Manager for Digital Development in Latin America and the Caribbean at The World Bank

To facilitate a cohesive approach to Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI), the U.S. government should develop a National DPI Strategy that could include:

• Implementing a comprehensive citizen-centric service design approach that considers and understands user needs, journeys, and life events.
• Establishing data privacy laws, interoperability standards, and microservices architecture as a Government architecture framework.
• Providing funding to support DPI projects.
• Investing in broadband expansion and digital literacy programs to ensure equitable access to government digital services.
• Ensuring robust cybersecurity measures, transparency through open data policies, and accountability mechanisms.
• Pursuing legislative support and active citizen engagement.

Daniel Castro, Director at the Center for Data Innovation

The U.S. government should ensure that all DPI is federally managed so that it works across all states. Creating separate, state-led initiatives runs the risk of fragmenting DPI efforts, as we have seen with many state-level digital projects (even those with federal funding). States should instead build upon national DPI for specific state-level services, but they should not be responsible for maintaining the DPI.

Ethan Zuckerman, Professor and Director of the Digital Public Infrastructure Initiative at UMass Amherst

The U.S. is much more resistant to the notion of "public goods" than most nations. Since Reagan, there's been an assumption that new technologies should be built by the private sector and that government involvement can only slow progress. We end up with situations of market failure, where the market cannot provide the services we need profitably and we end up either undercovered (the local journalism problem) or settling for substandard solutions (social media platforms dominated by surveillant advertising.) We need a change in our understanding of the importance of public goods as well as significant investment in the sector.

We need a combination of approaches that puts some regulatory infrastructure in place and couples those shifts with significant investment. To solve the problems of algorithmic power in social media, we would want to regulate interoperability of major social media platforms and ensure that both public and private actors could create "middleware" software that gives users increased control over their use of the platforms. We would need a strong environment to audit algorithms and ensure their fairness and transparency. And we'd need to fund pro-social, public benefit work in the space to spark interest.

This offers analogies for other areas of DPI buildout-we need to look at what markets are failing to do to provide necessary public goods, then use a combination of research investment and policy to allow new forces to enter the market.

Audrey Tang, Senior Research Fellow at the Collective Intelligence Project and Beth Simone Noveck, Professor and Director of The Burnes Center for Social Change, and The GovLab at Northeastern University

To facilitate a cohesive approach to Digital Participation Infrastructure (DPI), the U.S. government should draw inspiration from successful past initiatives like data.gov and the open data initiative at the General Services Administration. We propose establishing and funding a dedicated Digital Participation Office that would serve as a central hub for coordinating DPI efforts across all levels of government.

This federal DPI initiative would:

• Develop and Maintain a DPI Platform Repository: Host (and procure where needed) a centralized repository of open-source engagement platforms, making it easier for agencies at all levels to adopt and implement DPI tools.
• Provide Comprehensive Training Programs: Deliver training to government officials on how to effectively engage residents in various forms of policymaking and service design using digital tools.
• Establish a Grants Program: Allocate funding, along with access to platforms and training, to state and local governments to implement DPI. This would encourage widespread adoption and innovation at all levels of governance.
• Articulate Standards and Best Practices: Develop and promote standards for digital civic engagement tools, ensuring consistency, interoperability, and adherence to principles of accessibility, security, and privacy.
• Fund Research and Evaluation: Support ongoing research and evaluation of DPI initiatives to assess their impact on the effectiveness of policy making and service delivery, continuously improving the approach based on evidence. U.S. science agencies such as the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Standards and Technology should increase investment in DPI platforms, their deployment and evaluation.

Recommendations for Policy Action at Home include Legislation, Consumer Protections, Procurement, Governance, and Financing

Daniel Castro, Director at the Center for Data Innovation

The motto of U.S.-created DPI should be: "Think globally, act locally." The goal should be to create DPI that is scalable globally, and where the U.S. can act as a trusted supplier of the technology. This means that U.S.-created DPI should be based on open standards and open platforms (and open-source code), so that other countries can customize it for their own purposes. However, while the U.S. should think about the potential global application of the technology, it should not let other non-U.S. interests delay or circumscribe development of DPI. Instead, it should focus on user-centric design that considers the needs of its own users. Striking the right balance would allow the U.S. to proceed rapidly with DPI development but while remaining open to feedback from users and other stakeholders.

Lacey Strahm, Policy Lead at OpenMined

Multiple policies working in tandem are required to achieve the sea change necessary for an effective and successful DPI adoption in the United States.

One of the 'low-hanging fruit' policies the U.S. government can pursue is better leveraging its procurement power to steer the developer community towards building more DPI component solutions. Leading by example, U.S. agencies can seek only to procure and deploy DPI components locally on their agency technology stacks, such that with enough agency adoption of the right solutions, the entire U.S. government can inch its way towards a comprehensive DPI.

Another potential policy option is to direct the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) to develop more forward-leaning frameworks that emphasize the central characteristics of DPI component solutions and encourage more nonpublic resource allocations to be reserved for next-generation technologies. NIST could facilitate an educational workshop to convene relevant stakeholders and accelerate the process.

The last policy recommendation is increasing regulatory clarity surrounding cutting-edge DPI component solutions. Many organizations at the bleeding edge of technology development operate in legal gray zones as laws and regulatory frameworks from generations where the imagination to dream of new technological advancements did not exist. Thus, interpretations of intent and spirit can be sparse and inconsistent. Revisiting outdated laws and regulations, as well as introducing regulatory sandboxes for the meantime, will strengthen American innovator's ability and confidence to innovate.

Akash Kapur, Senior Fellow at New America and The GovLab, and Visiting Research Scholar at Princeton University

While government-led DPI is a bit of a hard sell in the USA, there are certain steps the government could take domestically to create an enabling environment for DPI. In addition to establishing a national/federal privacy bill, or at least a set of minimum national standards for privacy, the U.S. needs much stronger protections for cybercrime, identity theft, etc. Citizens aren't just scared of privacy violations; they're scared of having no redress if they are hacked or robbed online. Law enforcement geared toward helping citizens recover from these types of incidents would also go a long way toward building citizen trust.

Lauri Goldkind, Professor at Fordham University and Editor in Chief at the Journal of Technology in Human Services

Two complementary policy strategies the US might pursue to build a more robust DPI are the American Privacy Rights Act (APRA) and data supply chain legislation. The bipartisan proposed APRA centers transparency, accountability and civil rights to re-center power in the digital relationship between corporate actors and citizen's data. This law would supersede the laws that already exist in 17 states attempting to protect citizen data in a range of contexts. While the APRA centers on provisions for citizen's data rights, and does offer mechanisms to hold the private sector accountable, legislation specifically regulating corporate data trafficking behavior would serve to police the corporate actors who are profiteering via user data.

Comprehensive data supply chain legislation would treat data as a commodity moving through various stages of collection, processing, storage, and sharing, much like a physical supply chain. Supply chain transparency has been successfully used to reduce trafficked human laborers in fashion and other industries by increasing visibility and accountability throughout the supply chain; companies can help ensure that their products and services are not tainted by engagement with forced labor or the support of trafficked humans. Legislation could be supported by a National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) certification, or similar consumer facing designation that would signal to the public that corporations are engaging in fair and responsible data practices.

Joseph Lorenzo Hall, Distinguished Technologist of Strong Internet at the Internet Society

We need to explore ways the U.S. government can speed up and facilitate open collaboration in terms of open standards and open software/hardware. Improving cross-sector collaboration will make it more likely to occur and will increase the number of participants in the market for DPI across all levels of government.

We could do a better job of recognizing things that don't consider themselves DPI as being DPI. An example from my past work is the open source voting system manufacturer founded by Ben Adida, which concentrates on servicing the smallest of the small of the United States ~10,000 election jurisdictions.

There's a need for some fundamental research on ideas like, for example, composable secure systems and environments, and what makes these more likely to be effective than not.

David Eaves, Professor and Deputy Director in Digital Government at the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose

One idea that might be of interest is a new kind of investment vehicle: a "Domestic Digital Development bank." First, building out digital infrastructure needs an actor that can coordinate across the public and private sectors. Its mandate would be to shift core commoditized digital activities from financial capital models to production capital models, and lower transaction costs by limiting rent seeking oligarchies and turning their activities into efficient low cost utilities upon which new industries could be built.

Second, DPI is not as capital intensive as other types of infrastructure. It is more about coordinating and crowding in contributions from multiple stakeholders. But the ratio of capital versus operational costs in the digital space skew much more strongly to the latter - something most development banks are not equipped to service well. A domestic digital bank will need to be more focused on creating sustainable financial models for its investments, as opposed to upfront capital costs, and so its incentives, staff and costs models would need to reflect this.

Making the Critical Link between Artificial Intelligence and DPI

Alek Tarkowski, Co-Founder and Director of Strategy at the Open Future Foundation

There is a growing policy interest in public AI (which could also be framed as DPI for artificial intelligence). The U.S. could play a key role in conceptualizing and obtaining support for DPI for AI in ongoing policy debates at the G7, G20 and UN (Global Digital Compact) fora. More generally, it would be useful to conceptualize what DPIs mean in the space of AI development (especially that there will be strong overlaps with data sharing infrastructures). The United States is currently leading on policies that support public interest development of AI, for example through the NAIRR program or state level initiatives like CalCompute or EmpireAI (usually focused on computing power). While not usually described as DPIs, the connection should be made to link the DPI approach with the key space of AI policies and to frame the AI development debate in terms of public values and public interest.

Daniel Castro, Director at the Center for Data Innovation

The U.S. government should consider data layers as part of DPI. Many conceptualizations of DPI consider applications, networking, interoperability, etc. but not specifically the data that may be necessary for certain types of applications. For example, GPS is a data layer DPI. Other types of data layers may include 3D elevation data, weather and climate data, environmental data, public health data, and more.

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