Platformland #21

Hello!

Welcome to Platformland - a newsletter about next generation digital public services, the emergent platform model of government and the effects the these may have on society.

I’ve recently republished a few things elsewhere that, given you are signed up to this, you might be interested in: The Government as a Platform Playbook, Exploring Digital Public Goods and Universal Credit: Digital Welfare.

I’m slowly returning to work after 8 months-ish on parental leave. So, if anyone wants a chat over a cup of tea about the things in this newsletter, please get in touch.

Finally, if you find this useful please share platformland.xyz with your team. And, if you haven’t already, please become a paid subscriber.

All the best,

Richard

Platform news

• 🇮🇳 India announced that IndiaStack platforms can be reused by other countries.
• 🇦🇺 An Australian government report into the future of MyGov recommends more stable funding, more cross-government thinking and investment in digital ID and credentials. More below.
• 🇮🇳 DigiLocker is India’s digital wallet for government credentials. It has 146 million users and has issued 5.6 billion credentials. The Union Budget contained an announcement for a version for companies and charities. The budget also contains commitments to create digital public goods for the agriculture sector. Separately, UPI has gained something akin to travellers cheques.
• 🇦🇺🇲🇾🇹🇭🇺🇸 80% of drivers in New South Wales have a digital version of their driving licence. Malaysia has launched one.In Thailand they have been approaved for boarding domestic flights. More US states are getting them too. Increasingly hard for governments to claim digital leadership without one?
• 🇪🇺The EU has published a reference architecture for a digital wallet to hold interoperable digital credentials. “Member States or organisations either mandated or recognized by Member States [will make] the EUDI Wallet available for end Users”. So every EU country is going to be up against Apple and Google in the wallet race. The EU is big enough that maybe it can carve out a chunk of space on the OS. Credentials will take the form of either the ISO standard for digital driving licences or W3C Verifiable Credentials.
• 🌍 The Climate Data Steering Committee is seeking feedback on its plans for the Development of a ‘Net-Zero Data Public Utility’. The aim is to created a trusted central source of verifiable data about climate commitments.
• ✊Join Together is a common platform for trade unions to implement membership applications.
• 🌍OpenCRVS is an open-source civil registration platform. It’s maintained as a Digital Public Good and the code is here.
• 🇨🇦 British Columbia’s updated digital code of practice includes a commitment to take an ecosystem approach and prioritise common components. The province also has several active projects using the W3C verifiable credentials model.

Seamless design Designing the seams

Designing the public facing parts of shared platforms is an exercise in designing the liminal. Occasional links to examples of emerging UX …