Safety: trust in the makers

Digital Ethical Compass

Transparent about, for example, the government and companies’ algorithms. As a keynote speaker, Christina Melander, director of Digital Transition, Danish Design Centre (DDC) and vice president of the Bureau of European Design Associations (BEDA), pointed out all the beauty that digital technology offers but also pointed out the risks. “Algorithms are biased by default,” Melander said. “We have to use algorithms, it makes devices and processes smarter, but we have to be aware of what we are doing.” 

The DDC jointly developed a Digital Ethics Compass for so-called ‘digital front runners’ companies, a Danish bank and digital design agencies. The central question in that compass is: Just because we can, should we? In other words: everything is possible these days, but do we have to want everything? Melander: “Is it the technology that drives us, or do we decide for ourselves?”

“We talk about digital dilemmas, but we don’t have a common language.” With five principles, three themes and a number of questions, the compass helps you identify digital ethical dilemmas. “That’s how you develop your own language; it’s a conversation starter.”

Political speed dating

Melander’s story directly leads to political speed dating with CIVINC, an online tool to bring people with opposing views into contact with each other. At the end of the conference, the public can discuss statements digitally. CIVINC links people with opposing views together anonymously. They can then talk to each other via chat. Melander’s story leads to the statement: companies should be obliged to take public values as a starting point when developing new digital applications.

Ruben Treurniet and Leon Horbach developed the tool to allow voters of opposing political parties to discuss anonymously with each other during election time. Treurniet sees it as his mission to break bubbles. “We all live in a bubble.” With the support of the SIDN fund, the Ministry of the Interior and Stemwijzer, Treurniet and Horbach developed the waaromkiesjij.nl (why do you choose) platform. “More than 330,000 people from across the political spectrum visited the platform in just under five weeks.”

Scientist Jona de Jong investigated the impact. “At the beginning of the conversation, sympathy for the other side was a five, based on a ten-point scale. After about twenty minutes of anonymous chatting, that had increased to an average of six and a half.” Four more statements are asserted during the conference. This time the participants actually had the opportunity to meet each other.

The ability to reflect

During the conference, there was a break during which a film was shown, All Cops Are. Marion van Gelderen, creative leader at the police: “When I saw All Cops Are the first time, I was moved. I had to laugh at my desk. It dawned on me that these people (designer Yuri Veerman and local police officer Lotte Atsma, ed.) have come up with and made something that is both a statement from the police as well as something that gives an insight into the kinds of ideas that are out there, how people come to their conclusions. Strategy papers are full of them; we want to be a police force at the heart of society and in touch with everyone in the neighbourhood; we want to be humane. It has the potential to inspire people and to check with yourself how you come to your own conclusions.” 

The designer and police officer were linked together by the Social Design Police. They followed each other’s work and then came up with this project. Veerman: “Normally, you watch the police, and now I’m walking next to her, and I’m seeing things from the same perspective”.” Atsma: “Yuri has a neutral view. That’s what I love about this project. It doesn’t impose judgement but allows people to think for themselves.”

WITTE WAS® (White Wash) disco ball 

An auction was also part of the conference programme: WITTE WAS®, criminally good! A collection of seized illicit goods. It originated from the request of the Province of Noord-Brabant and Taskforce RIEC (Regional Information and Expertise Centre) to visibly return seized criminal money or goods to society. The province and the task force are working with Joes Janmaat and Manon Barendse of Studio Social Central.

Ad van Mierlo, director of the Brabant Zeeland RIEC Taskforce: “How nice would it be as a society to give a Porsche that’s been seized from a criminal to a hobby shop for young people in the neighbourhood? They can then disassemble the car. In this way, you clearly show that crime does not pay. You make them feel it.”

During the conference, a real disco ball was auctioned off. Janmaat: “It was seized sometime in 2020. The original owner remains anonymous.” Barendse explained the rules: “We’d like to ask you to make a social offer, including who or what needs it. It has to be a local bid against crime, or it just has to feel right that this organisation will get the disco ball. The audience is the jury, the bid that gets the most applause wins.”

The loudest applause received the offer to take the ball to Amsterdam-Zuidoost. “Because of COVID, many young people haven’t been able to have a party for a long time. And music sets the tone. A disco ball is, of course, an important part of that party. We can give these young people a party under this beautiful disco ball’s supervision. So that they don’t have to do anything in the port of Antwerp but can celebrate a party as it should be.”

Makers Collective

In a final panel discussion, partners discussed how they give design a place in their organisation. Such as the Ministry of Justice and Security started with Directorate X, a collective of makers to put the design experiments into practice. Olof Schuring: “Within Justice and Security, we have to innovate more quickly and effectively. Makers have tremendous skills to do just that. That is why we started the makers collective. To make a movement together that can show what’s actually possible. We have to think from the chain, from the task at hand and less from the organisation.”