#Weeknotes 6

The Digital Council for Aotearoa New Zealand had another busy week last week. We presented the Council’s advice to Ministers on the medium to long-term opportunities and impacts of Covid-19 from a digital and data perspective.

Our advice is grouped into following four themes:

• social and digital inclusion
• leveraging technology to empower business
• enhanced technology sector employment
• privacy and trust.

Read a summary of the Council’s advice to Ministers in our latest blog post join the conversation on Twitter and LinkedIn.

Stakeholder meetings

We also met stakeholders from the health, disability, social service, refugee and migrant sectors this week to discuss the digital divide and the need to urgently address it.

Several issues were raised including the sector’s experience of access to technology. We heard how financial constraints, in particular, led to limited internet access for some refugees, migrants and people with health, disability or social needs, marginalising them further.

Overall, stakeholders said there was a general lack of understanding among the people and agencies who designed services and information for them. Many designers seemed to have little idea of what accessibility is, why it is important or how to use and apply accessibility standards and tools.

Stakeholders said that although there is some awareness of accessibility, too often it is considered an afterthought and accessibility standards and tools are rarely integrated at the start of the planning and design process. As a result, documents are posted on websites that can’t be read by people with vision impairments, videos are published without captions and apps get released without the key features needed to allow everyone to make use of them.

As a Council, it is disappointing to hear this. We think New Zealand can do better.

Solutions put forward

Increased funding, a more streamlined approach across sectors and government, less duplication of resources and better implementation of accessibility methods were some of the solutions suggested for overcoming the issues.

In particular, service and information design needs to be designed with, and not simply for, the end user.

Digital literacy training across New Zealand’s entire workforce was another solution discussed as a means for ensuring equitable access to public information and services.

Whānau, guardians and carers need digital skills training too, so the people they care for can, in turn, be supported to develop their own digital needs and manage their own digital identities online.

Portugal’s example

Portugal was a country demonstrating a proactive approach to improving the population’s digital literacy through a variety of initiatives and may provide a good model to follow. Portugal, for example, employed ‘digital chauffeurs’ whose role it is to assist members of the public with digital access.

We find Portugal’s example interesting and in line with what we as a Council believe is key — digital for the many, with extra help for the few.

A key question we’d like to further explore with New Zealanders is:

What does New Zealand think could be done to increase digital accessibility and universal design principles in New Zealand?

Health sector insights

This week we also met with health sector stakeholders to discuss the importance of taking a principled approach to using data, artificial intelligence and machine learning in the delivery of health and social services in New Zealand.

Stakeholders suggested better engagement of New Zealanders in the development and adoption of an Artificial Intelligence Charter should be a priority.

It was interesting to hear New Zealand’s health sector spends about half of what other Commonwealth countries spend on information technologies — reducing our opportunity to address issues of complexity and fragmentation within the integrated health care system.

Stakeholders suggested the National Health Information Platform proposal could provide some of the answers and remedy some of the issues identified in a timely way.

Again, as a Council, we’d like to know:

What New Zealanders see as the key challenges and opportunities for the health sector in New Zealand from a digital and data perspective?

We’d love to hear your views.