29 July 2002

In the Service of Democracy?

By Richard Allan MP, Liberal Democrat IT Spokesman

Our current Government has made a great play of its commitment to "modernization" and the use of technology to achieve this. Who could disagree with this general approach? Who would not want to see our public services improved through the use of exciting new tools such as the internet?

It makes no sense for an opposition politician to challenge the Government's stated aims but rather to look closely at whether it is likely to achieve the results we all seek. And when it comes to matching reality to rhetoric there is still plenty to be concerned about.

Recently, we saw a slim (in terms of both length and substance) consultation document published on the subject of "e-democracy". The Government can take some credit for having done this at all, but praise for tackling the issue should not be allowed to screen criticism of the lack of substance in the contents. The paper tackles two issues, participation and voting. In both of these, there is a focus on achieving technical solutions with little apparent awareness of the context in which these take activities take place.

To tackle voting first, we are told that it is technically possible to vote using new technology like the internet and text messaging and this was piloted in May of this year without any major disasters occurring. The paper proposes a workmanlike approach to building on this until we can hold a general election online after 2006. So far so good. But what are not tackled are the questions of how a major move to remote voting rather than voting in person can change the democratic process.

How do political campaigns work in this context? What happens when a party has a last minute disaster in the campaign but the votes have mostly already been cast electronically? And very significantly for an election to be free and fair, how do we prevent undue influence being exerted over voters when they are no longer in the safe, neutral surroundings of a polling station? The technical aspects of e-voting are interesting but of minor significance when compared with the democratic implications.

The project to set up a single national electoral register is also discussed as well the need for (presumably Government-issued) secure digital signatures. The Government may see this as a technical issue wholly separate from considerations of privacy on the internet and of identity cards, but I am not sure the public will make such a neat distinction. There is a public interest in better electoral systems with secure identification methods, but this may be hard to progress without addressing the wider concerns that are now firmly on the table about privacy and the Government's use of personal data.

Looking at the participation section of the paper the same sense of focus on a technical solution comes through. The approach is a top down one looking at how Government can implement a "solution" to the perceived problem of a lack of participation in politics. Some examples of current good practice in engaging people with politics are cited but the emphasis remains on how the Government can drive participation.

What appears to be missing is a real understanding of the bottom-up way in which new media such as the internet can and do work. Much attention is given the Government portal for consultation. This is currently the CitizenSpace area of UKOnline and we are asked how this can be improved. I hope that the Government will remain committed to online consultation but it should accept that any official portal it creates will only be a small element within this.

Many other players - both existing successes like BBCi and new ones as yet unheard of - are likely to be the focal points for political debate on the internet. People are participating in ways of their own choosing rather than as directed by any central player. If Government is serious about using new technology to improve public participation then it needs to go where the people are rather than expecting the people to come to it.

Politics is much bigger than the formal structures of Government and the traditional political parties. The internet allows people to participate in a wider form of politics without needing to go through the traditional players. There seems to be little understanding yet in Government circles of the extent of the change that traditional players will need to undergo to remain relevant.

The success or failure of the Government's ICT strategy as a whole will depend on it being able to adapt its processes to the evolving rapid development networked architecture that underlies so many of the services we now use. Producing technically correct solutions is essential but will not on its own be sufficient.

Of equal importance will be the context in which systems operate and the willingness of Government to engage with citizens in ways of the citizens' choosing rather than the Government's. This will require a degree of flexibility that has not often characterized our highly centralized Government machinery. The search for this level of flexibility may literally make or break the Government as it is applied to services of great public interest such as the NHS.