The Implementation of the Irish Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty

Dublin City Council’s Smart Cities Unit and the Digital Services team have developed one of the first implementation plans for mainstreaming human rights through the delivery and use of digital services in Dublin. Working with nationally recognised Equality and Human Rights Expert Niall Crowley, the Smart Cities Unit and Digital Services teams analysed the Irish Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty and created an evidence book to support the upholding of digital human rights in the public sector.

The existing Irish Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty spells out three main goals for all public bodies in Ireland:

  • Eliminate discrimination
  • Promote equality of opportunity and treatment of its staff and the persons to whom it provides services
  • Protect the human rights [digital rights] of its members, staff and the persons to whom it provides services

The world is at a critical moment in regard to the mainstreaming of digital technologies in both the public and private sectors and the future implications of what these technologies mean for citizens. As cities accelerate digitally, it is more important than ever to be conscious of rapidly changing solutions that are being deployed.

In this digital age, within the larger umbrella of human rights, digital rights are the human rights that exist online as well as offline. This directly correlates to the standard laid out in the Irish Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty to uphold human rights, promote equality, and eliminate discrimination in public bodies in Ireland.

This ongoing work that has been done engaging with the Irish Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty sets the standard to uphold human rights in the digital sector nationwide across Ireland. It is crucial that the employee’s digital rights are embedded in their onboarding training and reinforced in their role when using and procuring digital solutions.

Each of the five equality and human rights value statements are key focus areas to use when examining and deciding to deploy digital services in Dublin. The value statements are: Dignity & Respect, Diversity & Accountability, Inclusion & Social Justice, Participation & Engagement, and Choice & Autonomy.

Many of us use digital services on a daily basis – from accessing the Internet from a mobile device, travelling through traffic intersections, and paying for goods or services. However, gaps in access to devices such as computers or tablets are also evident. For example, people from a lower socio-economic level are more likely to own older and second-hand devices, to have internet access only on their smartphone, and to have limits on the amount of data they can use.

In recent years, there has been a shift of office work to being remote work from home. When organisations assume that any employee has the technical digital skills and digital infrastructure to connect to a job remotely and be able to access all of the services and content online, they are potentially exacerbating the digital divide. This would fall under the Inclusion & Social Justice value statement, because normalising these actions could normalise the digital divide between people of different socio-economic levels.

Especially across lower socio-economic levels and across demographic divides – this digital divide is evident. Those who are unemployed, those with lower education, lone-parent households, and the lower income quintiles are less likely to own ICT devices, use computer software, download apps, use internet banking, or interact with the government online.

Taking a global angle to this work, Dublin has been involved with the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights. Since 2018, Dublin has participated and supported the work of the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights. Dublin committed to upholding and mainstreaming digital rights in the public sector by being a part of the Digital Rights Governance Framework pilot project and now continuing forward as a leadership city in the Coalition.

Further information will be provided about the Irish Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty and the topic of digital human rights through ‘Digital Rights’ workshops facilitated through Academy of the Near Future, which is the Smart Docklands engagement programme for young people and local authority staff. ​​These workshops will help to build staff awareness of the requirements of the Duty, the equality and human rights issues relevant to digital services and the implementation plan for the Duty.

While the Smart Cities Unit and Digital Services teams at Dublin City Council were one of the first departments to create an implementation plan for the Irish Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty; this is expected to scale across Dublin City Council, before spreading to local authorities across Ireland. To continually assess, address, and report digital human rights issues, the Duty must be treated as an ongoing obligation for all public bodies. The Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty Implementation Plan can be found here.

Smart Dockland’s End of Year Networking Event

It was a full house for our end of year networking event in the vaults of Dogpatch labs with almost 100 attendees joining us on a cold and wet November evening. When we started these networking events back in 2017 our motto was “if people turn up we will continue to host these events!” and we’ll be looking to have more regular meet-ups in 2024.

There was an extremely impressive attendance from across the the Dublin ecosystem from big tech, SME’s, startups, consultants, recruiters, academia, local authorities and public sector bodies. We’re extremely grateful for the support that we gotten from across the ecosystem to build out great collaborations and partnerships. Huge thanks also to Dogpatch Labs and Patrick Walsh for all their support over the years and the event’s venue.

Over the past 7 years something unique has been built across Smart Dublin via various partnerships and collaboration models working with CONNECT, INSIGHT and ADAPT. The City Council has co-invested over 2 million euro to date on these partnerships through Science Foundation Ireland (SFI) delivering a significant multiplier impact on top. Through these investments we have been able to build and scale our the Smart Districts Model and bring in new partners and opportunties along the way. Smart Docklands, Smart DCU and Smart D8 are great templates of how we are working to accelerate smart city innovation in Dublin.

We have built out some really talented teams across all our programme areas delivering impact in thematic areas such as future connectivity, digital twins, IOT, Drones, AR and health and wellness. Our initial Smart Tourism programme has also now evolved into a dedicated Tourism Unit culminating in winning the European capital of Smart Tourism designation for 2024!

See a link to all the slides that were presented on the night. Please reach out to us if you want to bring a great project idea or opportunity to Dublin!

Looking forward to the next event!

Digital Rights in Dublin: Reflections and Next Steps!

Since 2022, Dublin has been working with the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights and UN-Habitat to mainstream digital rights in the public sector. From May 2022 to March 2023, Dublin City Council and Smart Dublin worked as one the four selected cities to pilot Digital Rights Governance Framework.

Smart Docklands, a joint collaboration between Dublin City Council (DCC) and CONNECT Centre at Trinity College Dublin, developed foundational educational modules on digital rights through the Academy of the Near Future engagement program. The modules examined digital rights through the lens of ethics and privacy and three different stakeholders were identified; community members, local authority staff, and young people. After co-developing this learning content with experts in UN-Habitat and Cities Coalition for Digital Rights, three independent workshops were delivered in Dublin in March 2023.

Smart City Expo and World Congress – Barcelona

On the 9th of November 2023, we presented our process in developing the workshops and shared learnings from delivering our work on the Digital Rights Governance Project pilot on a panel discussion hosted by the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights and UN-Habitat: ‘Human Rights in the Digital Era: Lessons From Cities in Europe and Latin America’. 

The panel consisted of Claudia Bailey, representing Dublin City Council, along with Marcelo Zander, Undersecretary of Management and Modernisation City of Niterói, Brazil, and Manon Reniers, Project Coordinator, City of Brussels, Belgium. 

The conversation on the panel allowed cities in both Europe and Latin America to share approaches and discuss key learnings in the diverse ways each city is working to mainstream digital rights in the public sector digital transformation. The collaboration among the cities involved with the Cities Coalition for Digital Rights facilitates greater interdisciplinary learnings and implementation plans for mainstreaming digital rights. 

We chose to prioritise education about digital rights through in-person workshops. For the local authority audience, it was crucial to connect people from different departments to increase interdepartmental understanding and facilitate collaboration through the education about digital rights in the workplace. Our work on digital rights directly links to the existing Irish Public Sector Equality and Human Rights Duty, which protects and upholds human rights in Ireland. As digital rights are human rights that are protected in the online space, it is very important to also protect the digital rights of citizens in this digital age. 

We shared how even though our workshops targeted different age groups and demographics, it allowed the creative flexibility to address digital rights in different ways: the youth workshop gave students the opportunity to express their opinions and viewpoints on various topics through an interactive walking debate. Topics discussed included the use of AI in the classroom, data privacy on social media platforms, and unconscious bias in technology. The community workshop identified the most important thematic areas in digital rights for residents – privacy, safety, and security – and discussed this through a people-centred smart city approach.

Going forward, Dublin City Council is embracing the digital transformation and will be rolling out more digital services to meet the needs of citizens and communities. It is crucial that the Council is conscious of preserving, protecting and promoting data privacy, ethics and digital rights as we procure and implement new technologies.

Seoul Smart City Award

Seoul Smart City Award

We are happy to share that Academy of the Near Future won second place in the prestigious Seoul Smart City Prize in the Human-Centricity category. Accompanied by the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Daithí de Róiste, this trip allowed us to immerse ourselves in the world of smart cities, connecting with professionals who share our passion for creating inclusive, sustainable urban environments through technology.

This award is a testament to the collaborative dedication between Dublin City Council and CONNECT Centre to human-centric smart city development and ongoing efforts to empower individuals with the knowledge needed to actively participate in shaping their urban environments.

DiscovAR Dublin App Launch

Experience Dublin from anywhere in the world! At the end of August, our colleagues at Dublin City Council launched a new augmented-reality map: DiscovAR Dublin. The interactive mapping feature is the first of its kind in Ireland and allows users to navigate a 3D map of Dublin through the Dublin Discovery Trails App.

The 3D map can take you places across the city, including the Guinness Storehouse, 14 Henrietta Street, and more! DiscovAR Dublin is part of the Smart Tourism strategy to increase how we use digital technologies to engage with Dublin’s rich history. Learn more and download the app here

Project Airview Dublin

Our collaboration with Google on Project Airview was highlighted in Google’s annual sustainability report for 2023. Smart Docklands and Dublin City Council have a number of projects ongoing with Google leveraging their Environmental Insights Explorer and helping Dublin use a number of high value datasets to support sustainability and climate action initiatives. Find out more here

 

DCC Engagement Workshop

On the 13th of June, we held an interdepartmental workshop with Dublin City Council staff in Wood Quay Venue. It was a great opportunity to bring everyone together to share current and future projects that are happening in Dublin City Council. We are looking forward to building out these relationships between DCC and Smart Docklands through more creative workshops and collaborations with our youth and local authority engagement programme, Academy of the Near Future.

It was wonderful to highlight our existing work in the Docklands and align it with ongoing projects and initiatives that are in the works across the Dublin area.

Digital Rights Local Authority Workshop

We ran our first local authority staff workshop on digital rights. We looked at digital rights concerns about new and emerging technologies in cities through a speculative use case of a robot delivery device being deployed in a part of Dublin.  We also connected this workshop to the Irish Public Sector Duty, which promotes human rights in Ireland. We plan to hold more workshops that incorporate more specific examples of technology and initiatives that directly relate to Dublin City Council! 

 

Digital Rights Community Workshop

We also held a digital rights community workshop at St Andrews Resource Centre in the heart of the Docklands. The workshop focused mostly on privacy, safety, security and protections as one of the most important thematic areas in digital rights for residents. It was great to meet and discuss human rights in relation to digital technologies in Dublin!  If you want us to organise a workshop on digital rights for your community group please get in touch with Karolina at karolina@smartdocklands.ie. 

 

Design your Future City, 2023

‘Design Your Future City’ TY Week ️

March marked the return of Academy of the Near Future’s ‘Design Your Future City’ programme. Across 20th-24th March, 22 Transition Year students joined us in Dogpatch Labs for an exploration into sustainable and inclusive smart city development. From testing water quality on the River Liffey to debating digital rights, students engaged with various challenges facing our cities. 

The week rounded off with students presenting their own smart city solutions to a panel of experts including TCD Provost Linda Doyle, CONNECT’s Dan Kilper, DCC’s Jamie Cudden, and Sinead Kavanagh from Cellnex. It was fantastic to see the creativity of students’ ideas, which ranged from an app that helps citizens find green spaces to a new way of using scanning technology that supports visually impaired people navigate the city! 

Doors Into Docklands

In January we saw the launch of the Dublin Discovery Trails – ‘Doors into Docklands’ app. Co-funded by Dublin City Council and Fáilte Ireland, the app is the first of its kind in bringing the heritage and history of the Docklands to life through augmented reality (AR). Using just a smartphone you can experience the city’s famous characters, sites, and historical events!

You can download the ‘Doors into Docklands’ app from Google Play and App Store.