Nordic Talks Japan: No One Left Behind- Trust and Inclusion in the Digital Age
Digitalization can be a powerful tool to implement the Sustainable Development Goals, and the current Japanese government has put digitalization and e-government front and centre as a key policy ambition. But what exactly do we have to do to ensure a transparent and accountable digitalization of the government where all groups in our society are included?
On February 10th, Nordic Innovation House Tokyo, the 5 Nordic Embassies in Japan, and the Finnish Institute in Japan held our 3rd Nordic Talks Japan event to discuss the topic. We had an exciting venue provided by our partner UNIVERSITY of CREATIVITY at Akasaka Biz Tower in Tokyo. Online and offline participation combined, we had a total of +500 participants listening to the discussion.
In his opening remarks, the Ambassador from Denmark to Japan H.E. Peter Taksøe-Jensen mentioned that digitalization has been prioritised in the Nordics for a long time, and now the digital framework is well established and is making people’s lives easier and more resilient. For example, Denmark was able to smoothly distribute vaccination vouchers to their citizens to their digital mailbox, and also integrate vaccination records of their people living overseas who received vaccination outside of Denmark.
The Ambassador then welcomed the speakers and moderator for the discussion:
- Mr. Taro Kono, Chief of Communication of LDP and i.a. former Minister for Regulatory Reform
- Mr. Henrik Johansson, Executive Vice President of Growth at Crypto.com and former Managing Director at Spotify Japan
- Ms. Rikke Zeberg, Branch Director for digitalization at the Confederation of Danish Industry and former head of the Digitalization agency of Denmark
- Ms. Yoko Ishikura (moderator), Chief Officer of Digitalization Agency of Japan and Professor Emeritus of Hitotsubashi University
Digital Transformation in the Nordics and Japan
Ishikura opened the dialogue by emphasizing the importance of building trust in the digital age, and asked each speaker to share how digitalization is implemented in their country.
Zeberg introduced Denmark’s electronic ID (eID) and digital mailbox system, and how cooperation among states, regions, municipalities, and the private sector had been crucial since it started 22 years ago. “With the eID and the Citizen Portal website, people in Denmark are able to access various public services online, such as changing address, signing up for child care, checking medical checkup and COVID test results. The eID and digital mailbox are mandatory with some exemptions, and today, 92% of the people have accounts. There is a strong expectation among the citizens towards the public sector to be digitalized, since they are used to digital solutions provided by the private sectors.”
Johansson shared Sweden’s programs during the early-1990s, which allowed people regardless of their income level to acquire a PC. This marked a significant step for the early adoption of and access to digital devices and the internet in Sweden. “In Sweden, joining the digital infrastructure was not mandatory but still achieved a high percentage of participation. The key to success is to think on the user’s side and show the values of joining the system. What does it give to me that is different from today? In this regard, having input from the private sector and adding benefits beyond public services may be important, since people don’t interact with public services that often. They may not feel the benefits of joining the system if it only focuses on public services.”
Kono reflected on the story when he was carrying out the vaccination plan as the Minister in charge of the COVID-19 vaccinations. “When we created the system to keep track of the vaccination records, doctors were reluctant to use it because they were already dealing with so many different systems which were not integrated with each other. We need digital transformation to tackle the challenges decreasing and aging population bring, but at the moment are facing huge hurdles.”
Including Different Generations and Citizen Groups
Is it only the elderly generation to be considered when talking about inclusion? Johansson pointed out that if we fail to make the transformation, it means that we are not including the younger generation, who expect to be able to interact digitally.
Zeberg mentioned that when the use of eID and mailbox became mandatory, not only did the State collaborate with the Confederation of the Elderly to offer courses to teach how to use digital devices, but they also collaborated with other confederations representing different segments of the society. “There were challenges, but at the same time, digitalization provided us with solutions that we didn’t have before. For example, it gave us new ways to communicate with disabled people and provided homeless people (of which many own a smartphone) with access to services.”
Deregulation as a Key to Digitalization
Sharing his experience of how he was surprised in Singapore to see people log into their public portal through their smartphone’s face recognition, Kono said that “Most of all, digital solutions must be easy to use. We can’t continue to have multiple systems where people have to log in to different systems to do different stuff. We should provide all solutions in one portal, and in order to do so, we need to work on deregulation.”
Consolidating Services Raise Concerns of Data Protection
When all systems are controlled under one portal, data protection and having trust in the system becomes a fundamental issue.
“From a technical perspective, yes, there is a solution to safely secure IDs”, Johansson said. “But another aspect that we must think about is to whom and where should the trust exist? Trust will need time to be built. A monolithic structure of trust tends to lead to some issues. A distributed trust may be a more interesting strategy to take.”
Kono continued by giving examples of misuse of data. “Trust is not an issue as long as authorities and professionals use personal data as they are supposed to, for example, doctors using patient data for check-ups. But once the data is used improperly, for example, tax authorities conducting fraud, trust will collapse in an instant.”
Zeberg agreed: “Denmark was lucky that trust towards the government was already well established. The eID has been in work for more than 10 years now and has had over 6 billion transactions since. We understand that misuse of data can quickly lead to distrust, so we are very careful.”
Student-Led Q&A
Following the dialogue, there was a lively Q&A session, involving young students who were attending at the venue. One of the students suggested that elderly people should not be afraid of new technologies and wish that they tried out more of them, giving an example of her own grandmother denying new online services and apps. She wishes her grandmother looks more to the positive side of online services and apps, such as making things simple and having access to new ways of communication, and suggests elderly people to at least try them out rather than denying them from the get-go. The role of media to create a positive attitude toward digitalization was brought up by a high school student, giving the example of how the media was motivated to promote digital broadcasting in Japan (started in 2003, completed in 2011) because they knew that digitalization will benefit them with higher resolution broadcasting. When a student asked how we can promote and enhance the benefit of the Japanese My Number Card, (a government-issued ID card for Japanese citizens to enhance digitalization in public services and its procedures. Issuance is based on self-application and the issuance rate is 42.4% as of March 2022). Kono replied that the first step is to transform Kasumigaseki (part of Tokyo where the government bodies are clustered) into a digital community.
Actions Towards a Digital Age with Trust and Inclusion
Lastly, Ishikura asked each speaker what they think are the actions needed for Japan. Johansson said it was a forward-looking mindset and dialogue between the public and private sectors. Zeberg emphasized cooperation and collaboration between the public and private sectors, with any organizations that could be even slightly relevant. Kono foresaw that the support ending for 3G feature phones would be a turning point for Japan and that we will need to create an infrastructure to teach how to use smartphones for beginners.
As closing remarks, the Ambassador from Sweden to Japan H.E. Pereric Högbergthanked thanked all speakers, moderator, and participants for the fruitful discussion. He added to the dialogue the value of time and access that digitalization has provided us, and also how we should be honest about the danger that digitalization may bring, especially to democracy, such as opinion corridors. As it was with digitalization, the voice of civil society has always been a driving force in the Nordic countries, and in this context, digitalization can be also a tool for listening. Finally, the Ambassador emphasized the importance for the Nordics and Japan to continue the conversation to learn from and inspire each other and invited all to join again for the next Nordic Talks Japan.
You can also follow the whole discussion on the recording.
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