Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) - Is P only Public?

Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) where in the digital services are offered to the citizens using the underlying digital goods and infrastructure. It is interoperable, enhancing the digital adoption, there by achieving the bigger goal of providing inclusive and transparent services. In short it is used as level playing field. At the bottom are the actual physical layer with digitized data available through servers and data centers. The DPI offers the Digital Identity, Digital Payments, Gen AI training algorithms and the consent related facilities. This connects to the apps on the other side supporting wide range of domains like e-commerce, health, education, govt benefit transfers etc.

Parties: Though it is named as for Public, is it only by Public? There is a role played by number of parties like the technology companies, the private investors, the Govt. policy makers, regulators, volunteers, the entrepreneurs and so on. To bring all parties on to one common goal of empowering citizens digitally and to have sustainable financing options is a challenge. Each party has their own triggers to go silo like say private sector see this as a strategy to build a world class business case, politicians would see as the foundation for the next elections etc. and all these could cause parties to be at logger heads with the regulators.  To align all the parties into this DPI framework on one side and to win the trust of a general citizen on other side is what could be a crucial factor to achieve success with DPI.

Power of control: Going beyond what government does, the innovation with technology by use of Open Stack - comprising of open content/data, open standards, and open source softwares assisted this journey. On one side from a technology standpoint, this achieves the interoperability and the other side it even reduces cost. Moreover, there is no centralization of data, it is entirely decentralized, and the data resides with the issuer and only access is given to the user after authentication within an underlying consent framework.  This is a big factor preventing the data colonization. Trust factor hence is high since the citizen is the controller of his data. Since scope is vast, success in one or two high priority applications can overcome the initial barriers. Once the success starts coming in it can be replicated across geographies for further reinforcing the DPI across all verticals.

Policies: Just like how rules must be followed in all public infrastructure like roads, railways etc. the rules or the governance play a key role in DPI. There are policies around encryption, access, privacy, and data governance embedded into the DPI architecture. Having a legislative framework not just to promote inclusion but also to resolve disputes and uphold privacy will help. Proper universal regulations including gender-responsive considerations are required. People centric policies together with respect to fundamental human rights and freedom will win the trust of the general citizen.

Privacy: One of the biggest benefits of DPI can also offer the biggest risks if they are not safe. It offers risk around privacy, cyber security vulnerabilities, misusing of IDs if they are not appropriately implemented. Consensus about the norms and minimal safeguards that all countries need to adhere, will help in overcome the risk factor. Federated approach to data, instead of centralization is what makes it even more trustable. Unlike India which had the resources and their own human capital to build their own DPI, many countries don’t have this luxury. This makes them dependent on proprietary solutions which must be contextualized to their own country and have other technology as well as political vendor lock-in challenges, hence it is even more essential for each country to safeguard and strengthen their own DPI infrastructure. 

Partnerships: Interoperability although is a technical term and if we take the people aspect of it, the interoperability/collaborative efforts among the partners or the various groups which come together with in DPI can be a value derived exponentially if done rightly. Successful DPI model in India foundationally depended on the public and private sector partnerships. A lot of effort by United nations and a few more countries DPI efforts acted as catalyst for deployment of DPI across the globe in an efficient manner. The essential thing at this point is countries can learn from each other and at one point we will also transcend from simple digital goods to global digital goods. This can only be possible with sharing of the knowledge, the learning, the best practices of the DPI framework like (ex: MOSIP – Modular open-source Identity Platform). This combined with state-of-the-art open source will help many more countries to wholesomely embrace DPI.

Already Internet and Mobile have spread across and is now accessible to everyone with an underlying Infrastructure funded by international organizations riding on public money. During the G20 summit held in New Delhi in Sept 2023, it was decided to establish a global repository of the DPI Initiatives. Around 50 DPIs from 16 countries are already part of it. There are around 12 DPIs from India alone and they are Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, Umang, eSanjeevani, API Setu, Co-WIN, GeM, Diksha, e-Hospital, Poshan tracker and Ayushman Bharat Digital Mission. I still believe this is only the beginning and much more is yet to come and experience. These are life changing digital initiatives for the entire human world to benefit supported by technology innovations.