Digital tools and open data in public institutions for a better and more inclusive democracy

On November 16, the students of the Digital, New Technology and Public Policy stream of the School of Public Affairs were delighted to welcome Ms Paula Forteza, former member of the French Parliament. Ms Forteza drafted many reports related to digital government, digital rights, and digital democracy. Additionally, she worked for Etalab, a program of the French Prime Minister in charge of open data and open government policy. Throughout her career, she stays committed to democratic innovation, engaging closely with the civic tech ecosystem and as a member of the French Parliament, she contributed to translating the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) into French law.

>Ms. Forteza discussed with us the topic: "Digital and democracy: Will digital technologies save or sink democracy?". She passionately shared her experience in the French Parliament where one of her main commitments was to open the institutions to civil society in order to make them more transparent and democratic. She achieved these goals thanks to digital tools that also proved to be useful in crisis management.

First, she explained how she launched the Open Office (Bureau Ouvert) which gathered experts from various fields with the objective to open up Parliament to citizens. Several projects were developed in this framework such as “The Citizen’s Question” platform where citizens can propose questions to Members of Parliament (MPs). This formed a direct channel to question the government about certain issues. Ms. Forteza, through the Open Office, was also highly committed to increasing transparency of public life: her team created a platform “Open Parliament” (Parlement Ouvert) on which MPs can publish their expenses. 

These projects are in line with Ms. Forteza's long activism for open data. During her mandate, in order to increase transparency for citizens, she published her agenda in order to better understand the functioning of lobbyism activities in the National Assembly. Her expenses as a deputy were also made public. She worked on opening the National Assembly to citizens, notably through streaming sessions on Twitch. Still with the idea to open the National Assembly to civil society, Ms. Forteza organised and promoted hackathons at the National Assembly. They aimed at bringing together the administration and hackers to collaboratively work on solutions on various subjects such as public financial data or the results of the Great National Debate. 

While digital tools can become prominent for institutions to increase citizens' democratic participation and regain their trust, they also raise concerns about data privacy. Thus, in the end, Paula Forteza shared with us her experience on digital regulation issues. According to her, regulation is a powerful tool in the hands of states and institutions to help us prohibit or limit bad practices. Ms. Forteza believes that the European Union is the right level to work on regulation. Major regulatory texts such as the GDPR, the Digital Service Act (DSA) or the Digital Market Act (DMA), have shown the capability of European countries to be pioneers in this field. Alongside these efforts, Paula Forteza advocates for developing democratic or private digital tools by design in order to prevent bad practices and uses. She argues that private companies should not build the internet of tomorrow, which is why she believes that internet governance should be treated as a public good open to all.

Article written by the students: Yasmine El Ghazi, Karin Hess, Deepal Khatri, Léa Roubinet and Simonas Zilinskas.

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• The Digital, New Technology and Public Policy stream at the School of Public Affairs

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