How do you solve a problem like technology? A systems approach to digital regulation

Rachel Coldicutt – doteveryone

It is increasingly obvious that ways of regulating and controlling digital technologies struggle to keep pace with the technologies themselves. Not only are they ever more pervasive, but their control is ever more consolidated. Regulations – such as the EU cookie consent rules – deal with real problems, but in ways which somehow fail to get to the heart of the issue, and which are circumvented or superseded by fast-moving developments.

This post takes a radical approach to the problem: rather than focusing on specific regulations, might we get to a better place if we take a systems approach, identifying (and nurturing) a number of approaches, rather than relying on a single, brittle, rules based approach? Optimistically, that’s a good way of creating a more flexible and responsive way of integrating technology regulation into wider social and political change. More pessimistically, the coalition of approaches required may be hard to sustain, and is itself very vulnerable to the influence of the technology providers. So this isn’t a panacea – but it is a welcome attempt to ask some of the right questions.

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