Technology can cause unjust situations and harm by the way it is planned, designed, developed or deployed. In general, we tend to fix technology-generated problems by intervening when technology is already causing harm. Such approach turns justice into an afterthought rather than the intended purpose. What if we could move the attention to justice to an earlier point in time, at the point of planning and designing a technology and make it the default setting?
This way of thinking is known from the field of privacy by design and security by design. In this conceptual paper design thinking is applied to the creation of digital technologies in order to make the process generate a more just outcome. 6 principles are presented to offer guidance to organizations involved in this field who want to support and implement justice by design.
Dr. Els De Busser is Associate Professor Information Law at the University of Amsterdam, Institute for Information Law (IVIR). She is the Programme Director of the Master Information Law at UvA.
She specializes in multidisciplinary education and research on a broad range of topics including digital justice, data protection and privacy, legal aspects of cyber security, AI and human rights and European criminal law.
Els is UNESCO expert AI and the Rule of Law and a member of the Standing Committee of Experts on International Immigration, Refugee and Criminal Law (also known as the Meijers Committee).