Ethical Technology Adoption in Public Administration Services

Project Information

ETAPAS

Grant agreement ID: 101004594

DOI

10.3030/101004594

Project closed

EC signature date 13 November 2020

Start date 1 November 2020

End date 31 October 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 3 292 936,25

EU contribution

€ 3 292 936,25

Coordinated by

MINISTERO DELL'ECONOMIA E DELLE FINANZE
Italy

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - ETAPAS (Ethical Technology Adoption in Public Administration Services)

Reporting period: 2022-02-01 to 2023-10-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

Disruptive Technologies (DTs) have a great potential to boost the developing of new and more efficient Public Services. However, resource shortage in terms of competences and infrastructures, but also resistance to and lack of trust in technology, could hamper the full exploitation of this potential. Due to the recent uptake of the topic of ethical, social and legal issues related to DTs, practical guidelines to comprehensively assess the risks of adopting DTs in Public Administrations (PAs) are emerging only now, but they usually do not address the specific challenges and peculiarities of the Public Sector.
The ETAPAS project aims at accelerating a responsible adoption of DTs in the delivery of Public Services by developing a practical framework supported by a prototypical software platform, to offer to PAs a first-time assessment methodology to measure and mitigate the potential ethical, social, and legal risks.
The framework and the platform are co-designed with Public Bodies; lessons learnt and PAs’ feedback feeds into ETAPAS final output: a Governance Model to allow other public organisations to replicate the methodology and adopt innovative solutions while assessing, monitoring and mitigating associated risks.
The ETAPAS project’s mains objectives are the following:
• Define a conceptual Responsible Disruptive Technologies framework to assess and manage the ethical risks of DT-based applications in the Public Sector and their potential social and legal impacts
• Design and develop a software prototype that enables the ethical assessment of DTs in the Public Sector on the basis of the conceptual framework.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

Phase 1 (M1-M12): Research & Design. Main activities carried out included:
• Collection of background information on the most relevant ethical, social, and legal aspects of DTs for the Public Sector.
• Design of the conceptual components of the RDT Framework, the Code of Conduct (CoC) and the Legal Framework.
• Translation of the conceptual components into real ethical risks, social impacts, and practical indicators.
• Definition of a validation approach for the RDT framework. An empirical approach that, for each use case, allows for the identification of the specific risks and social impact that could arise in using DTs in the defined scenario, and of the consequences of not having a code of ethics for the adoption of such technologies.  
Phase 2 (M13-32): Test & Validation. Main activities carried out include:
• Selection, evaluation, and validation of the relevant ethical principles and indicators. The work foresees active engagement with PAs, to ensure that the RDT framework is pertinent to the use case perimeter and context - currently undergoing
• A qualitative assessment to collect and evaluate the qualitative indicators defined in the Research & Design Phase and validated at the previous activity. This activity entails the implementation of the measurement guidelines of the qualitative indicators (mainly related to social impacts). Qualitative assessments of the Disruptive Technology Application (DTA) are being carried out (before the development and adoption) and will continue during the whole DTA development - currently undergoing
• Finalisation and, if needed, refinement / integration of the development of the DTA. All of the pilots are involving the DTA’s stakeholders and users to ensure a human-centric approach and integrate the operationalization of the output of the relevant qualitative assessment results - currently undergoing
• A legal assessment of the use case aiming at leveraging the output of the Research & Design Phase. Preliminary activities have been carried out with the objective of determining what legal restrictions should be respected to ensure legal compliance - currently undergoing
Cross-Phase activities: Technological Platform & Communication, Dissemination & Exploitation. Main activities carried out include:
• Technological Platform: definition and design of the basic requirements for the ETAPAS Prototype, a prototype of a software platform to support the application of the ETAPAS RDT framework for responsible adoption of DTs. PAs member of the consortium have been actively involved in the design of the prototype as stakeholders, partaking in the identification of its core functionalities, while the technical partners of each of the four use cases tailored the needed connectors and data structures
• Communication, dissemination, and exploitation effort: extensive communication, dissemination, and exploitation activities, in order to maximize the impact of the ETAPAS project
Phase 3 (M32-M36): Synthesis & impact pathways. Main activities carried out include:
• Finalisation of the RDT framework reviewing its components. This activity includes refining the RDT framework based on insights from use cases and feedback from European PAs, ensuring its efficacy in mitigating ethical risks
• Identification and description of lessons learnt. This activity entails the analysis of commonalities across use cases to identify and articulate lessons learnt, forming actionable recommendations to support PAs in responsibly adopting DTs
• Derive a governance model of DTs and develop implication assessment measures by integrating insights from the Test & Validate phase, providing PAs with guidelines for ethical, social, and legal assessments, and offering measures for risk mitigation
Cross-Phase activities: Technological Platform & Communication, Dissemination & Exploitation. Main activities carried out include: the finetuning of the ETAPAS Prototype requirements for the technological platform, engaging PAs, technical partners and external users while conducting extensive communication, dissemination, and exploitation efforts to strategically share project outcomes and continuously communicate insights and best practices for the responsible adoption of DTs

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The ETAPAS project is providing European Public Administrations with a systematic framework for assessing the potential ethical, social, or legal implications of deploying DT-enabled solutions in the Public Sector, placing accountability, fairness, and transparency as a critical factor.

The final results of the project include:
• The definition of the ethical and legal requirements in terms of principles for the adoption of DTs in the Public Sector.
• The definition of a practical approach to measure, control and monitor ethical risks and social impacts that the PAs can apply when adopting DTAs.
• The responsible development and adoption of DTAs into four real-life use cases by different PAs to derive lesson learnt.
• The test of the RDT Framework designed in the Research & Design phase on real-life cases, as well as its validation and improvement with specific inputs from the PAs member of the consortium.
• The definition of a Governance Model for PAs to deliver an ethical, social, legal adoption of DTs.

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