Digital Doubles: The Potential for Public Sector

Already established in the manufacturing industry, Digital Doubles are getting personal. The race is on to create virtual manifestations of ourselves that could eventually become a home for all of our personal data over which we have control, as outlined in the 2020 Fjord Trends.

Toni Horn, Strategic Design Lead at Fjord explains here how governments will need to embrace Digital Doubles, learning to navigate issues such as privacy, security and inclusivity.

What are Digital Doubles and can you talk a bit about the current momentum behind them?

Digital twins have been used in manufacturing and other industries as a way to model physical objects, spaces or processes for a variety of different purposes. This can range from fairly simple models to full on virtual recreations that enable users to immerse themselves in digital environments. The idea of Digital Doubles applies this to people and the increasingly detailed virtual representations of our physical lives. 

In a world where we do more online, one way to use Digital Doubles is to visualise data about ourselves. For example, imagine my Digital Double holds my health data, enabling me to easily share that with health care providers. It’s a great mental model to make abstract ‘cloud storage’ more human.

Also, when we look at the metaverse and specifically at virtual reality (VR), your Digital Doubles could be an avatar of yourself with which you interact in a digital world. One interesting nuance here is that an avatar does not necessarily have to look like you, but could be anything a person chooses, so there is real scope for people to exercise more control than ever over how they appear online.

Why could Digital Doubles be important to the public sector? Are we already seeing a transition from the enterprise?

Digital Doubles could be important in the public sector in many ways. For example, giving people a better way to interact with data and privacy by visualising it. They can also enable citizens to do more things digitally – think of someone in a rural area being able to go to the passport office virtually – however, there are lots of things to consider, including inclusivity, privacy and security.

The applications are wide ranging. In health, it could be useful in enabling the early diagnoses of health conditions by making the right data available to the right clinicians. For tax and benefits agencies, they could help bring together a wide range of rights and obligations in a way that is easy to understand and manage. And more generally it could offer citizens an easy and secure way of accessing a variety of government services.

The Data Transfer Project is a great example of the type of work being done in this space to give people more control over their personal data. However, current contributors are mostly private organisations and there could be a real potential for the government to be a leader here, offering people a secure and trusted service that is not tied to a profit making entity.

Why do you think government could play this role?

More and more private companies are holding biometric and other information about us. Often people don’t even know who holds what, so there is an opportunity for government to establish itself as the gatekeeper of people’s data. Rather than taking control away from individuals it could enable them to have more control over what is or isn’t shared with different government entities or service providers.

There is good reason to think government could be well placed to play this role. We already trust them with important data, such as health and income information and they have a mandate to ensure this is protected and secure. However, maintaining that trust will be incredibly important and, potentially, difficult.

What do you think will make it challenging?

I have found that people tend to hold government to a higher standard than private companies. There are obvious reasons for this but, if government is to play a role in creating Digital Doubles, maintaining trust levels would be essential. That is why it is heartening that ‘responsible data’ is one of the four pillars of the UK Government’s National Data Strategy.

One way to do this could be to make individuals part of the conversation around privacy and security. Digital Doubles could help here, by enabling people to better understand what their personal data represents and actively engage in discussions around how it should be protected. 

To help facilitate this, any Digital Double design decisions should be as clear and simple as the mental model itself. Simple interactions and a straightforward user experience will be important as will making it as inclusive as possible for everyone.

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Although the concept of Digital Doubles is still a new one to many people, as we’ve seen here, it will be beneficial for governments to join the conversation – now.