Digital Dignity Initiative

Voedselbanken Nederland, the association of Dutch foodbanks (DFB) provides food support to about 180.000 people in the Netherlands. Although the numbers show that some people in need can find their way to the food banks, DFB assesses that many more people in the Netherlands would qualify for their support. DFB is currently conducting a project called ‘Under the Radar’ (UtR) to actively approach these potential new food bank clients.

The UtR project is aimed at helping people overcome social hesitancy and social stigma while accessing foodbanks through digital nudges and other measures. The Digital Dignity Initiative will provide ethical guidance to the UtR program. Digital sciences can be used to help persons and families that qualify for food bank support, but have not approached the food bank yet, by analyzing income and unemployment data followed by localized campaigns. However, there are significant ethical concerns in deploying technological measures for encouraging  people to access the food bank. The Digital Dignity Initiative’s guiding principle is access to a foodbank does not mean sacrificing one’s digital agency. Accordingly, the project is aimed at fostering trust amongst people seeking to access foodbanks by designing ethical safeguards that protect privacy, dignity, and autonomy.

Project objectives

The intended outcomes of this project are:

1. This  project provides a unique opportunity to develop ethical analysis of deployment of digital nudges and other non-technological measures for achieving desirable social outcomes in a real life setting from an interdisciplinary perspective. Usually, such studies are conducted either as empirical work or solely from a unitary disciplinary perspective. This limits the scope of analysis as well as the  benefits of the insights developed during the study. An interdisciplinary study involving  groundwork can help develop a holistic  understanding of the ethical challenges faced in deployment of technology for achieving laudable social objectives.
2. The ethical insights developed in collaboration with the Under the Radar team have the potential of making real-world impact in a short span of time. Such collaborations between universities and societal organizations are rare. The general life cycle of ethical guidance is either ex-ante or ex-post. However, the live collaborative aspect of this project can result in the dynamic adoption of ethical guidance in real-time.
3. The research paper published at the end of the study will draw on three strengths: 1) interdisciplinary expertise, 2) on-the-ground collaboration and 3) analysis of the deployment of ethical safeguards. These three pillars will result in a research output that is rich in ethical theory, interdisciplinary analysis and real-world impact.

Potential impact

• Scientific: Ethics are often seen either as impediments or afterthoughts in the development and deployment of technological measures. The Digital Dignity Initiative seeks to avoid these errors by actively collaborating with the various stakeholders in designing  ethical solutions that are implementable on the ground. The ethical roadmap charted as part of the Digital Dignity Initiative would  focus on inspiring  trust in members accessing the food bank and seeking to preserve their digital agency.
• Societal: The Digital Dignity Initiative can help pave the way for an ethical solution to the social problem of eradication of hunger  through technological means. If the study succeeds, it can serve as a useful pilot project that can be replicated at scale across food banks in the Netherlands.

Duration

The Digital Dignity Initiative will run for one year starting from July 2023 onwards.

Multidisciplinary project team

• Lead applicant Dr. Anuj Puri is a postdoctoral researcher at the Tilburg Institute for Law, Technology, and Society (TILT), where he is working with Prof. Dr. Esther Keymolen on devising self-regulatory strategies for responsible and trustworthy AI. Anuj completed his interdisciplinary doctoral research on the group right to privacy at the University of St Andrews. He was also a research fellow in AI and the Rule of Law at the Bingham Centre for Rule of Law. In line with his interdisciplinary background, Anuj’s contribution will focus on the ethical analysis of the technological nudges deployed for encouraging people to access food banks.
• Dr. Frans Cruijssen is senior researcher at the Zero Hunger Lab and has been working with the Dutch Foodbanks since 2020. Frans holds a cum laude PhD in Operations Research from Tilburg University, and is actively focusing on multidisciplinary research collaborations within Tilburg University. With this background, Frans can bridge the gap between analytics and social phenomena.
• The Under the Radar team of The association of Dutch foodbanks will provide crucial insights on the ground challenges faced by members while accessing foodbank. Anuj and Frans will work in collaboration with the Under the Radar team on developing an ethical framework that ensures the digital dignity of the members of the foodbank.

This project is funded by Tilburg University’s Digital Sciences for Society program: