Relevance: GS-2:Important aspects of governance, transparency and accountability, e-governance- applications, models; Government policies and interventions for development in various sectors and issues arising out of their design and implementation;

Relevance: GS-3:Awareness in the fields of IT

Key Phrases: IndEA 2.0, WEB 3.0, GovTech platforms, digital governance, federated identities, National Open Digital Ecosystems (NODEs)

Why in News?

• A blueprint called the ‘India Digital Ecosystem Architecture (IndEA) 2.0, was released recently by the Ministry Of Electronics And Information Technology (MeitY). It provides a few clues on what would WEB 3.0 mean for ‘GovTech’, i.e., using tech to provide citizen-centric public services.

Key Points:

• The document outlines how the government should architect its digital infrastructure for the Web 3.0 era.
• The digital ecosystem is defined in the document as “a distributed, adaptive, and open socio-technical system with properties of self-organization, scalability, and sustainability.”
• To cite a rough analogy, today’s GovTech platforms like Aadhaar and UPI, though built using open source software and interoperability principles, are akin to a tightly choreographed orchestra controlled by a single conductor.
  • The next generation of GovTech platforms built using IndEA 2.0 design principles could be more akin to a jam session.

• While it doesn’t explicitly name Web 3.0, the IndEA 2.0 report seems to have embraced the principle of decentralization that is the biggest promise of the Web 3.0 approach.
  • The early web, or Web 1.0 was a connected platform where people could access information and start interacting with each other. However, it was mostly a collection of static websites.
  • Web 2.0, also sometimes called the Social Web, gave us platforms like Google, Amazon, Facebook and Twitter and made the web more dynamic and interactive.
• However, one of the unintended consequences of Web 2.0 was that these platforms turned into giant monopolies or duopolies due to network effects.
• Because of network effects, Web 2.0 became too centralized in terms of data, code, services and infrastructure.
  • In contrast to Web 2.0, the emerging Web 3.0 architecture is expected to be decentralized, more secure and provide users greater control over their data.
• The IndEA 2.0 report recognizes this paradigm shift in technology architecture by proposing a move from systems to ecosystems and from platforms to protocols.
  • It envisages digital governance as a set of building blocks that can be combined to create citizen-centric services.

  

• In addition to the general philosophy of embracing decentralized technology, the report has some specific features that are fresh and noteworthy.
  • First, it emphasizes the need for a federated architecture approach to preventing risks that arise with large scale data centralization, such as hacking of data ‘honeypots’ and surveillance.
  • Second, it proposed the concept of ‘federated identities’ in order to optimize the number of IDs a citizen needs to have. While the details of this need to be understood, the idea that citizens can choose a limited set of IDs that they trust to use for various use cases, is a promising one.
  • Third, it recognizes that building capacity within government for a new generation of GovTech requires new competencies and proposes a module-based approach to upgrade skills and change mindsets across government.

Way Forward:

• While it is a landmark document, the approach outlined in IndEA 2.0 needs deeper thought on some of the ‘non-tech’ elements of governance and community engagement.
• The report talks of participatory design, but this needs to be built out: how might the GovTech systems of the future be designed with citizens rather than for citizens?
• In a similar vein, while the report recognizes the importance of protecting data, the primary framework to enable this is user ‘consent’, which needs holistic improvement.
  • Going beyond consent, for example, promoting nudges like privacy ‘star ratings’ and guidelines on real-world implementations of concepts like ‘privacy-by-design’ would help.
• Unlike the decentralized governance approaches of Web 3.0 like DAOs, IndEA 2.0 envisages that a wing of the government, or a Special Purpose Vehicle (SPV) on the lines of UIDAI (Aadhaar) or NPCI (UPI) should be responsible for handling the technical, domain, legal, commercial and program management aspects of IndEA 2.0.
  • Such an approach is welcome, and getting this anchor ‘governance’ institution right – as a professionally run, arms-length and accountable institution – will be critical for the next phase of GovTech to succeed.
• In short, taking the blueprint from principles to implementation will require more specific and actionable guidance.
  • The “Good Digital Public Infrastructure Principles" listed by CoDevelop and MeitY’s white paper on National Open Digital Ecosystems (NODEs) provide useful markers for this.
  • Examples of NODEs in India include Aadhaar (or the India Stack project), Unified Payments Interface etc.

Source: Live Mint

Mains Question:

Q. IndEA 2.0 presents a bold step forward on re-imagining GovTech for a more decentralized Web 3.0 era. However, the proof of the pudding will lie in the implementation. Comment on the potential issues and provide steps to rectify them. (250 Words).