Lost in the Lasagna? - A Journey Into the Multi-Layered Problem Structure of Swedish Digitalisation
Publish date: 2020-02-11
Report number: FOI-R--4814--SE
Pages: 125
Written in: Swedish
Keywords:
- digitization
- data
- automation
- AI
- IoT
- threats
- vulnerability
- risk
Abstract
As commonly described in national strategy and policy documents, Sweden is undergoing a digital transformation. From the point of view of the public administration system, the potential of this transformation is declared to be huge, whether in terms of greater efficacy, reduced costs or in terms of better services to the citizens. However, there is no guarantee that digitization will actually bring about these improvements as there are many pitfalls on the way. In fact, failed digitization projects can lead to increased costs, more administration and new security risks. This report explores potential vulnerabilities and problems related to the digital transformation, focusing particularly on society's increasing dependencies on digital infrastructures and services, and the related challenge of coordinating and addressing risk assessments. It is argued that the rapid deployment of new digital technologies give rise not only to new layers of complexity but also to new types of vulnerabilities and threats. The main point of the analysis is that the challenges of digitization are often not technical in nature but exists on a societal level, where issues of coordination, expectations, security and ethics must be addressed.