DPI Design Principle #4: Protocols

Another design principle of India’s DPI (Digital Public Infrastructure) is protocols. As opposed to platforms. This needs some explanation, as done by Rahul Matthan in The Third Way. A platform (like Facebook or YouTube) provides a forum where anyone can post material but there are no guarantees on what will be permitted (or how the rules could change with time). A protocol, on the other hand, is a set of rules that are defined upfront so all participants know what is allowed and expected.

 

The DPI’s protocol model means any participant can create entirely new applications that nobody had thought of, as long as they follow the protocols. This allows for enormous creativity and evolution of applications over time.

 

And lastly, since protocols are rules, regulations can be enforced via the protocol. The government doesn’t have to chase down every participant to see if they follow the rules. The mere act of agreeing to follow the protocol (in software, remember this is all digital stuff) means all actors have to/will follow the regulations. And since the core layers are owned by the government, by changing the rules of the core layers, they can ensure all participants automatically follow the rules.

“Where so much of our lives is driven by technology, we can no longer just rely on laws to regulate code. Instead, we need to embed, directly into the technology infrastructure upon which modern society operates, the democratic principles that legislators are trying to enforce through statute.”

And ends by saying:

“This is a new techno-legal approach to data governance."

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