Nudging the government: How open data can be used to make behavioural governance work both ways

Abstract

Data-driven regulation has become a new type of governance. Identifying number plates and human faces using computer vision, and tracking the position of consumer devices deploying sensors in the public space, are facilitating new master plans for the smart country and its smart cities, where government services are provided only to those who need them (Hodgkinson 2011). Politics are struggling to keep pace and include available data and newly identified threats in the development of new policies. Behavioural governance is helping to utilise data collection in order to influence consumers and citizens without the need to enact strict penalties for unwanted behaviour and without the requirement to enforce regulations with huge bureaucratic overheads. The computer industry’s default answer to the how of politics is what could be called 'solutionism': problems are to be dealt with via apps, sensors and feedback loops - all provided by start-ups (Morozov 2014). Google's Eric Schmidt was even more optimistic in 2014: IT start-ups would provide the solution to economic inequality.