DIGITAL INCLUSION

Brit Ross Winthereik, Margunn Aanestad & Åsa Mäkitalo

DIGITAL INCLUSION

Djøf Forlag
2024
Brit Ross Winthereik, Margunn Aanestad & Åsa Mäkitalo
Digital inclusion
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 Contents

Preface – Michala Høg Daimar . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Digital inclusion: A growing imperative .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

Chapter 1. The problem of digital exclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

The train and the maze . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 18
Informal digital support . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19
Introduction to the chapters . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Chapter 2. Digital inclusion as the new policy wave . . . . . . . . . . . . 25

Attending to digital inclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26
The Nordic countries as frontrunners . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 29
Digital inclusion as remedial action . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31
Digital inclusion as a growing matter of concern .. . . . . . . . . 32
Legal frameworks for digital citizenship . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 34
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 38

Chapter 3. The partially digital citizen .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 41

The quest for universality . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 45
Access .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 46
Digital competence . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 47
Administrative competence and domain skills . . . . . . . . . 49
Interest, willingness, and sufficient trust in public
services .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 50
Non-digital citizens . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 51
Moving on from “digital” vs. “non-digital” . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 53
Example 1: Astrid’s father and mother-in-law .. . . . . . . . . . 54
Example 2: Tove’s sister . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 55
Beyond the citizen as computer-user . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56
Citizens are diverse . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 56

Contents 5
Embracing life’s transitions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 58
Webs of relations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 60
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 61

Chapter 4. Invisible support work at the frontline ............. 65

Invisible work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 67
Professional helpers .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 69
Securing school-home communication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 70
Teachers, parents and platforms . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72
Connecting to third actors . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 74
Digital support in municipal homecare .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 76
Drawing boundaries – a new kind of invisible digi-work? .. 78
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 80

Chapter 5. Digital support by non-professionals and volun-

teers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 83
The digital helper . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 84
Asking for help .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 86
Offering help .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 88
Proxy users . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 91
Organized voluntary help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 93
Supporting informal helpers .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 95
Scholars’ understanding of digital help . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 98
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 100

Chapter 6. Inclusive infrastructures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 103

Accessible digital services and technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Universal Access design guidelines . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 104
Plain language initiatives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 107
Improving service interoperability . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 109
Broadening the perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Digital services are not neatly bounded . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 110
Digital services depend on underlying shared
resources .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 113
The infrastructure perspective . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Relational aspects of digital services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 115
Information infrastructures have histories .. . . . . . . . . . . . . 116
Infrastructures as underground . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118

6 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
Digital identification as infrastructure . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 118
How digital identification can create exclusion . . . . . . . . 121
How is exclusion propagated? .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 122
Destroying the web of connections . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 123
Interconnections across infrastructures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 125
Ownership of infrastructures and commercial
providers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 126
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 127

Chapter 7. A learning welfare service system ................... 129

Welfare service systems as ecologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 130
Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 131
Repair .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 133
Systemic preparedness – and lack thereof . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 135
Bridging Bureaucracy and Corporate Realms . . . . . . . . . . . . . 136
The Impact of Empathy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 140
From problem-solving to systemic learning . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 142
Installing agency . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 145
Conclusion .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 147

Chapter 8. Designing for inclusivity .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 149

The problem of participation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 151
Framework for digital inclusion .. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 156
Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 158

Afterword – Bjørn Erik Thon ...................................... 163

Acknowledgements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 165

References . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 167

Index . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 177

Contents 7
 Preface

Digital inclusion: A growing imperative

Until a few years ago, many believed that digital inclusion was merely
a temporary trend – that the challenges would naturally resolve them-
selves.
Today, we understand this is not the case. Digital inclusion is more
crucial than ever. With the digitization of society and ongoing digital ad-
vancements, we constantly elevate the level of what citizens are expected
to do digitally, and the repercussions of being digitally disconnected are
intensifying. It complicates being a citizen, both in terms of interacting
with public services and in everyday tasks such as paying bills, reading
heating meters, purchasing train tickets, or filing insurance claims. The
digitization of society continues to benefit the majority. However, if some
citizens are unable to leverage these digital opportunities, we face the risk
of digitization posing a democratic challenge.
The clear agenda that results, commonly referred to as digital inclu-
sion, has thus seen a significant surge in recent years. Therefore, I warmly
welcome this book on digital inclusion within a Nordic context. It has
been sorely needed.
The increasing focus on digital inclusion stems from the realization
that managing public digitization alone is insufficient. We must simul-
taneously ensure that all citizens have equal opportunities in the welfare
society, regardless of their individual digital skills. Digital inclusion has
thus become an integral part of the digitization agenda.
Yet the field of digital inclusion remains in its infancy. The deter-
mination is strong, and experiences are progressively being shared, but
there has been a noticeable lack of scholarly literature on the subject. I
hope this book will spark discussions about the implications of digitiza-

P r e fac e 9
tion, which can then lead to tangible solutions for the digital inclusion
agenda: how we as a society can ensure that all citizens have access to the
public services to which they are entitled.
The agenda is complex and sometimes lacks nuance. Who are these
citizens? What are their challenges? And why have we not addressed these
challenges much earlier?
These are intricate questions that the authors from Norway, Swe-
den, and Denmark tackle in this book. In 2020, when they began their
research, there was scant political interest in the topic. Practical work on
digital inclusion was underway in some areas, but it did not garner much
attention. The Nordic trio approached the subject from different per-
spectives, ensuring that this book offers a comprehensive and nuanced
exploration of digital inclusion from the viewpoint of these countries.
This is essential, given that digital inclusion poses a multifaceted chal-
lenge.
The view from Norway, Sweden, and Denmark is a strength in itself.
Although the prerequisites for digitization vary across these and other
Nordic countries, our similarities outweigh our differences. In Scandina-
via, we share a democratic approach to the public sector. There is a unified
agenda that the welfare society should be inclusive for all, regardless of
digital proficiency. And citizens in these countries place significant trust
in their public sector – a trust that all public authorities understandably
value and wish to maintain.
This book provides an in-depth introduction to the concept of digi-
tal inclusion. Through analysis and examples, it acquaints readers with
the challenges citizens may face in a digitized society, offering a much-
needed, nuanced view of who is most impacted by digitization. Naturally,
it does not solve all the challenges of digitization, but after each chapter,
the authors reflect on key considerations and highlight the most press-
ing issues.
Addressing all the challenges of digitization requires more discussion
in both professional and political arenas, involving civil society organiza-
tions, citizens, and experts. Additionally, we need to draw on experiences
and perspectives that cross national boundaries. This knowledge is cru-
cial for making informed, responsible decisions about future digitization
efforts. This is what our citizens rightly expect.

10 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 May this book serve as a launchpad for further knowledge. What does
it mean for our society to digitize the public sector so extensively? What
digital demands can the public sector impose on citizens – and vice versa?
Where is responsibility best placed – and should it be shared?
With the hope of enriching the debate on how we make the digital
welfare society more accessible to all citizens, all that remains is to say:
Happy reading.

Michala Høg Daimar

Office for Inclusion, Digital Agency Denmark

P r e fac e 11
 CHAPTER 1

The problem of digital

exclusion

The Scandinavian countries are currently undergoing a digital transfor-

mation that involves the population as a whole. Welfare services are dig-
italized across the board, in most cases requiring the more or less active
involvement of citizens to make digitalization fulfill its envisaged po-
tential. The promised gains of the digital transformation are threefold:
firstly, cost-efficiency, by offering services at a lower cost via the instal-
ment of digital platforms; secondly, improved convenience for citizens,
not least for those living far from public administrative offices and wel-
fare providers; and thirdly, more objective case-handling, ensuring neu-
trality in decision-making with respect to the allocation of welfare ben-
efits. To fulfill the promises, transformations are taking place in a range
of different sectors and policy fields. Fiber cables have been laid in areas
far from the administrative centers, information about welfare recipients
is being collected and shared in new ways, and workflows and procedures
are being redesigned to make the best possible use of digital technology
by the public authorities as well as frontline personnel, where citizens
meet the state.
The Nordic countries top international rankings in terms of high ed-
ucational levels in the general population, trust in politicians, collabora-
tion across the public sector, and political interest in pushing the latter
to drive innovation; digital services have been rolled out countrywide
since the early 2010s. The Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI),
published by the European Commission, ranks Sweden and Denmark at

T h e pr o b l e m o f d i g i ta l e x c lu s i o n 13
the top when measured according to human capital, connectivity, inte-
gration of digital technology, and digital public services (Norway is not
part of the ranking due to it not being an EU member state). Yet the dig-
ital transformation has happened with hardly any public consultation
and very little parliamentary deliberation. To paraphrase a well-known
phrase in Science and Technology Studies (STS): in the digital state, tech-
nology is politics by other means.1
The fact that technology is politics by other means indicates that
many decisions pertaining to digital societies have been delegated to
technology design, and thus indirectly to the developers and purchasers
of digital solutions for the public sector. This raises several questions:
how should we, as a society, ensure we benefit from digital technologies?
What systems and infrastructures would we like to use? What compro-
mises are we prepared to make? What societal values should drive the
digital transformation? These questions have not been asked up front.
One of the implicit decisions that was left unconsidered in government
digitalization policy until now is the requirement, imposed on citizens,
to make digitalization a success through additional work.
We know from Organization Studies, Information Systems research
(IS), and Science and Technology Studies (STS) that making information
and communication technologies work demands human effort beyond
their role as “users”. This dimension has largely been absent in political
strategies, wherein citizen involvement is implied. Public-sector digitali-
zation has been considered primarily a technical challenge. But successful
digitalization requires attention to the social and organizational aspects
as well. Digitalization requires relational work, repair, maintenance, and
learning “on the ground”.
The consequences of digitalization policies that regard the digital
transformation as a technical challenge are beginning to show. Various
actors have raised their voices to shed light on the negative effects of dig-

1. The phrase originates with Clauzewitz, who said “war is politics by other means”.
It is taken up by Latour in The Pasteurization of France (1993). The phrase was
later explained by Lucy Suchman (2016). See also Gorur, R., Hamilton, M., Lun-
dahl, C., & Sjödin, E. S. (2019). Politics by other means? STS and research in
education. Discourse: Studies in the Cultural Politics of Education, 40(1), 1-15.

14 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
italization: from high-ranking international observers to citizens who
organize resistance to what they consider to be the “dark side” of digi-
talization. In 2019 the UN’s Special Rapporteur on Human Rights called
for attention to be paid to the widening gap between rich and poor as a
result of digitalization (Alston 2019). He sent a warning signal that Euro-
pean societies are sleepwalking into a dystopic future due to differences
in access to public services and participation in democratic institutions.
Citizens have also made this point, warning about new forms of ine-
quality due to digitalization. In 2022, Carlos San Juan, an elderly citizen
from Madrid, mobilized a group of people to rally against the banks’ de-
cision to minimize access to cash. Traveling to Brussels to demonstrate
against an increasingly cashless society, he spoke directly to the legisla-
tors:

You have the knowledge, as demonstrated by the great projects that

have emerged from the European Parliament, and the authority that
we have given you with our votes, to develop a Plan B so that nobody
is left behind; regardless of their cultural or digital level [...] Let us
make digitization serve people, not people serve digitization. Please
do not forget the elderly, do not forget us. The elderly will increase
every day, and the elderly also exist.
(Translation from Spanish to English, Carlos San Juan, initiator of the
movement “I am old, NOT an idiot”, at the EU Parliament in 2022)

The UN report and San Juan’s public statement point towards a simi-
lar problem, namely, social exclusion by digital means, addressing both
sides of the coin: unlawful treatment and inequality due to differences in
access to digital services. Both sit very badly with core values in Scandi-
navian welfare societies: equal possibilities and equality vis-à-vis the law.
In what follows we refer to this problem as digital exclusion, which is a
huge challenge for those who experience it, but also, potentially, for gov-
ernments and state authorities. Digital exclusion can threaten the social
cohesion and stability of Scandinavian welfare societies. It is therefore
critical that future decisions connected with digitalization will be based
on democratic deliberation and public consultation. We hope that this
book will show why this is important.

T h e pr o b l e m o f d i g i ta l e x c lu s i o n 15
 We know that infrastructures, once built, can be very hard to re-engi-
neer, due to them being materially, organizationally, and politically em-
bedded. It is therefore important to think ahead and consider methods
to observe and monitor developments in this area. We offer a taste of
the social, technical and organizational interdependences that we need
to consider when we think of digital public services as infrastructures.
One aspect that has so far received very little attention politically is how
digital infrastructures in the public sector are not just technologies that
citizens can use, but form environments in which people live their lives
(Winthereik & Wahlberg 2022).
To consider digital technologies as environments, let us for a brief mo-
ment travel back in time, to Stockholm in the spring of 2022, where two
of us, the authors, participated in a conference on digital inclusion.2 At
the conference were representatives from all the Nordic and Baltic coun-
tries. We discussed digital inclusion and how to achieve it, with an overall
focus on social sustainability. A workshop was held that addressed the
question of how to measure people’s capacity to use public digital ser-
vices, and the issues discussed during group work revolved around meas-
uring digital inclusion to make it part of the Digital Economy and Soci-
ety Index. Should this be done, and if so, how? This question triggered a
lot of debate. Many found the initiative sympathetic, but considered it
very problematic, if not impossible, to put a number on digital inclusion.
It would be great if we could measure and monitor it, said the critics, but
how can we create a trustworthy measurement of digital inclusion that
could be used across the variety of countries and across people’s subjec-
tive experiences? Many were supportive and saw the need for measure-
ment that would make digital exclusion visible to politicians – who, as
someone said, “only understand numbers”.
We tend to agree with the critics as well as the proponents of the sug-
gestion, as we understand the need to make visible how digitalization
affects people in digitalized states overall. But we would also like to ques-
tion the “knowns”. Numbers may not do the trick, but exacerbate the sit-
uation, because they measure what we already “know” to be the problem.

2. https://nordregio.org/blog/experts-gather-to-discuss-digital-inclusion-in-the-nor-
dic-baltic-region/

16 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 Using resources from Organization Studies, IS, and STS, in this book
we examine a largely undescribed dimension of digitalization: the work
that people undertake to make IT work in order to proceed with their lives
in a digital state. The book addresses some of the often-invisible aspects
of digitalization as it is unfolding. A key contribution is to show how the
current successes of digital services are premised on people informally
helping each other to get online, get access, and become users of the digi-
tal systems and services provided. We refer to this help as informal digital
support. Part of the invisibility can be ascribed to the nature of this work,
as it happens between other tasks and is ill-structured and generally un-
acknowledged. Sometimes it is rewarding despite its invisibility. At other
times, it is not only frustrating, but can create conflict and make people
responsible for tasks for which they should not be responsible.
With this book we invite readers to have a look behind the scenes of
public-sector digitalization in Scandinavia, which according to some pa-
rameters is very successful. We demonstrate why measuring people’s sat-
isfaction with public digital services is extremely difficult, partly because
experiences of public-sector digitalization are socially and technically
distributed. Backstage, people’s experiences of digitalization are part of a
meshwork of computer appliances, identification procedures, passcodes,
chats over coffee, welfare policy, migration laws, money laundry legisla-
tion and much more. This goes against the official narrative of digital
citizenship, which hinges on the idea of digitally skilled citizens who can
conveniently access self-service solutions from the safe environments of
their individual homes or, indeed, from anywhere while on the move (for
a critical reading of the convenience discourse, see Carreras 2024).
In The Presentation of Everyday Life (Goffman 1956), the concept of
backstage is explained as somewhere “the performer can relax; he can
drop his front, forgo speaking his lines, and step out of character”. This
definition makes sense when considering individuals and their behavior
in the public space versus in their private environment. Interestingly,
however, the backstage of the welfare state is replete with work and ef-
fort. There is no stepping out of character; in fact, people step into new
“public” roles, they perform as other people and bend backwards to solve
problems that are not theirs. Other people’s problems become theirs due

T h e pr o b l e m o f d i g i ta l e x c lu s i o n 17
to social ties and a desire to help others live decent lives, but also because
the authorities delegate more and more tasks to citizens.
In this book, we demonstrate the effects of this delegation and offer
some ideas as to how we can think about it. Towards the end, we outline
ideas as to what can be done to realize socially sustainable digitalization.

The train and the maze

Digital inclusion begins with the ambition of recognizing differences in
circumstances and valuing diversity, and only very few people would be
against this. Still, we see one important barrier for valuing social differ-
ences and furthering the diversity that can lead to digital inclusion. The
barrier for inclusion consists of the two logics that exist when it comes
to digitalization.
On the one hand, a “world champion logic” prevails. The Nordic
countries are digital frontrunners, at the top of the DESI rankings. We
exemplify this with the image of a high-speed train, and the narrative that
everybody must jump on the train if they are to be part of the future. The
train is a metaphor for a fast-moving politics, driving towards intensified
data-collection and European systems integration, but in this realm we
also find talking about human-centered solutions and ethics as remedial
actions in response to suboptimal systems. In this logic, citizens must
become digitally competent for societies to progress. When citizens need
additional support, it is because they are already socially and economi-
cally vulnerable (which, as we find in this book, is sometimes – but not
always – the case).
Separate from a world champion logic, we have the everyday struggle
in which people find themselves. This logic considers the digital society
as a maze. People struggle in ways that involve not only access to fun-
damental welfare services for which it can be difficult to become eligi-
ble, but also the means of communication. Citizens help each other, and
many experience that they have minimal access and also very little agency
to bring about change. They experience that the negative experiences of
digitalization, including legal breaches, are not considered unless a com-
plaint is filed. Many therefore feel left behind, and experience inequal

18 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
access to support as “the new normal” in the digital state. Figure 1 illus-
trates the situation – the two logics are in the same picture frame, but
other than that, they do not have much in common.

FIGURE 1. The train and the maze. By Esther Vinther Ringsmose.

In this book we offer details that we hope can illuminate this situation.
The situation is unfortunate, but we believe that inclusive digitalization
is possible and can be achieved. However, it requires that the maze is rec-
ognized as a problem by decision-makers and politicians to a much larger
degree than hitherto. While there is a growing indignation at inaccessible
digital services, generally people have not organized. Many lack trust in
their own digital capacities, they feel lost in digital translation (Fuglet-
veit & Sørhaug, eds. 2023). There is a need for the two worlds to become
part of the same picture. Digitalization can support diversity, equity, and
rights, but not if it is done in a top-down manner.

Informal digital support

Our focus on digital inclusion has grown out of the hypothesis that for
many people – even in some of the world’s most digitalized societies –

T h e pr o b l e m o f d i g i ta l e x c lu s i o n 19
public services are inaccessible when delivered by or accessed through a
digital platform. Some people are simply not able to use advanced digital
technologies as envisioned by policy-makers, and they will need help. We
imagined that many are indeed getting help, but as yet we know little
about what they are helped with, how the help is delivered, under what
constraints, and by whom. Of concern in this book, therefore, is how to
characterize informal digital support in order to ensure that future
digitalization is for people.
The research question of who supports the excluded or partially ex-
cluded citizens and residents in the world’s most digitized countries grew
out of our research on digital technologies within welfare, health care,
and education. Our previous research revealed that digital technologies
often do not work exactly as they are meant to work or as conceived by
the planners and designers. From a research perspective, it is, therefore,
not surprising to see that eIDs, platforms for home-school communi-
cation, or apps for patient involvement spawn issues that must be tack-
led. What did surprise us, however, was the seemingly unbridgeable gap
between the idea that digitalization will save resources and bring about
innovation in the public sector, and realities “on the ground”, where so
many people have negative experiences of digitalization and feel they
have become a burden to others due to limitations on their effective dig-
ital engagement with the public authorities.
Among the people adhering to the world champion logic, we find
claims that chatbots and AI can seamlessly replace human labor in the
municipalities by responding to questions or sorting clients according to
urgency. Digital technologies are often introduced experimentally, at the
interface between citizens and public authorities, to see what works and
what does not. When these technologies are implemented as pilot pro-
jects, they enter through the back door, which means that key questions
are not discussed. We know that new technologies transform work. A
public-sector employee will perhaps need to ask: Can I, as a social worker,
trust the decisions of AI, and how should we relate to a chatbot collegi-
ally? A citizen will be interested in: Why is my health data not available
to the municipal case workers, or if available, why do they not trust it?
A manager asks: Can I trust the consultancies, who argue that AI can
replace people and still uphold the quality of the service we deliver? If

20 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
digitalization sneaks in via the back door, how can we have a shared con-
versation about the values we would like to further? We can see that once
digital technologies have been bought, they are rarely rolled back. This is
why overall strategic discussions that involve those who are affected are
crucial.3
As we said, and as decades of sociotechnical systems research attest
(see Aanestad & Ollaussen 2010), it is not surprising that there is a dif-
ference between strategic aims and practical realities when it comes to
making digital technologies work. Consequently, we want to contribute
to continued efforts to take seriously those parts of people’s knowledge
and everyday experiences that struggle to make it into digitalization
strategies and policies. Given the criticality and scale of digital services
for welfare delivery, ensuring population-wide access is an urgent mat-
ter. Moreover, with respect to future strategies, it is equally important to
understand the citizen in digital societies as more than a computer user.
The stakes are high if we do not realize this. Citizens must be considered
active co-developers of the digital society in ways that are neither extrac-
tive (harvesting data that they do not wish to share) nor intrusive (au-
tomatic requests of burdensome digital work in vulnerable situations).
Emphasizing and working towards this is needed to ensure that digitali-
zation will benefit all.

Introduction to the chapters

What will you encounter in this book? In Chapter 2, we present some
of the background and context related to public-sector digitalization in
Norway, Denmark, and Sweden. We show how an initial digitalization
push (also connected to digitalization in the EU and wider global con-

3. Exceptions to this rule are beginning to show, see Ratner, H. F., & Schrøder, I.
(2023). Ethical plateaus in Danish Child Protection Services: The rise and de-
mise of algorithmic models. Science & Technology Studies. See also Seidelin, C.,
Moreau, T., Shklovski, I., & Holten Møller, N. (2022). Auditing Risk Prediction
of Long-Term Unemployment. Proceedings of the ACM on Human-Computer
Interaction, 6(GROUP), 1-12.

T h e pr o b l e m o f d i g i ta l e x c lu s i o n 21
text) is followed by a new focus on digital inclusion. In Chapter 3, we
problematize the ideas of the “digital citizen”. In reality, we will show
how “users” are differently empowered over the course of a lifetime. Also,
they are not autonomous individuals, but enmeshed in social networks.
As a consequence of the primacy of the digital citizen in design, the users
who struggle and the informal welfare work required are not sufficiently
accommodated. In order to highlight the situated and socially embed-
ded nature of being digitally competent, we will propose that we should
rather discuss the partially digital citizen, and argue that this can allow bet-
ter public support for life in the digitalized state.
The chapters that follow expand on these themes. We will show that
for many people, “digital citizenship” is ongoing work, rather that some-
thing they “possess”. In many cases, digital citizenship is only attainable
when they get help from others. This help, which we call informal welfare
work to emphasize its crucial significance for the welfare state, is the topic
of the following chapters. Chapter 4 describes how, in many cases, pub-
lic employees are expected or feel driven to help their citizens with “the
digital”, in addition to their primary work. The chapter analyses this as
“invisible work” and provides examples from teachers who communicate
with parents through but also outside of the digital platforms for home-
school communication, and who often have to do extra work. The chap-
ter also describes how nurses who meet patients in their home environ-
ments are met with requests or need for help with a wide range of digital
challenges. In particular, we focus on how they draw boundaries for their
help as a novel type of work.
Chapter 5 discusses the help provided by next-of-kin, neighbors, or
voluntary community members. We show how this is crucial work, but
that it also incurs costs and risk for the participants. Personal informa-
tion gets exposed, help with the digital may take time from social inter-
actions, and trying to sort out things may engender worry and frustra-
tion among all participants. The reliance of digitalization policy on the
(unrealistic) digital citizen figure has displaced much work onto these
informal helpers, who are doing repair work in the welfare state.
In Chapters 6 and 7, we will look into more systemic factors that
constrain the ideals of an inclusive digital welfare system. In Chapter 6,
we discuss the crucial role of digital technology in either enabling inclu-

22 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
sion or creating exclusion. The chapter argues that while user-friendly
and accessible service interfaces are required, these are not sufficient. We
also need to look “behind the screen” and recognize the larger, intercon-
nected digital infrastructures. Multiple systems are interconnected, and
large webs of information-sharing constitute the backbone of the digital
state. These infrastructures come with their own challenges, and control
and influence can be challenging. Chapter 7 discusses the current wel-
fare service system as adaptive, evolving systems (ecologies), and argues
that it doesn’t learn from all the problems that occur in the everyday,
local use of the digital services. These situations where exclusion happens
can be considered as situations of breakdown of the universal ideals, and
consequently they are valuable pointers to where repair should occur.
Addressing these weaknesses would make the system more robust and
prepared for novel challenges. At present, the problem may get solved in
the concrete situation, but there are too few “signals” that are collected
and acted upon. Instances of digital exclusion must be better recorded if
the welfare system is to learn. Learning should also encompass examples
of welcoming and inclusive practices.
In Chapter 8, we propose a framework for digital inclusion as a re-
source for moving on. The framework can be used as a tool for raising
awareness and use in political, managerial or design-related discussions.
We raise a number of questions, some of a “practical” nature, others more
value-oriented. We also propose a revisiting of ideals of user involvement,
and suggest ideas for inclusive methods. The chapter sums up our ideas
of how to move towards a people-centered and socially sustainable digi-
talization of the critical infrastructure of our welfare societies.

T h e pr o b l e m o f d i g i ta l e x c lu s i o n 23
 CHAPTER 2

Digital inclusion as the

new policy wave

The digitalization of government services for citizens and residents in the

Nordic countries has been extensive in the past few decades.1 In recent
years, Nordic governments and other policy actors have launched a num-
ber of strategies to further improve and support it. One direction for this
work has been provided by EU strategy and legislation. Policy initiatives
such as Digital Agenda for Europe,2 the Digital Single Market strategy,3
the Digital Decade,4 and more recently the AI Act5 are seeking to harmo-
nize the future direction of digitalization.
Recently, the focus within Nordic digitalization policies has evolved
to include the concept of digital inclusion more prominently, potentially
carving out a new direction for digitalization in the policy landscape.
What this means, specifically, is that besides considering digitalization
as a driver for efficiency in the public sector and for value-creation in

1. For a more extensive description of the various countries’ digitalization strat-

egies, we refer to the comprehensive overview provided in Randall and Berlina
(2024).
2. Digital Agenda for Europe | Fact Sheets on the European Union | European
Parliament (europa.eu)
3. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A52015DC
0192
4. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/eli/dec/2022/2481/oj
5. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A52021PC
0206

D i g i ta l i n c lu s i o n a s t h e n e w p o l i c y wav e 25
economic terms, governments are increasingly turning their attention
to one crucial yet overlooked aspect of digitalization: citizens’ experience
of public digital solutions and services. This expanded focus reflects a
growing recognition that the benefits of the public digital services are
not serving citizens in equal measure.
This book zooms in on digitalization as it takes place on an every-
day basis. We show how digital inclusion happens on the ground, and
we describe work that takes place in organizational and legal grey zones.
We argue that many aspects both relating to the nature and the scale
of the problems pertaining to digital exclusion are still largely invisible
to policy-makers. One of the reasons is that the work that is carried out
to include people who find digitalization challenging is invisible, under-
valued and unaccounted for. Despite this, policy-makers must become
aware that they need to find ways to better support this unaccounted for
inclusion work to ensure the cohesion of digital societies.
Setting the stage for a discussion of how this can be furthered by pay-
ing attention to informal digital support, in this chapter we suggest that
digital inclusion should be seen as a new wave in the digitalization poli-
cies of the recent decades. We will outline directions set by Scandinavian
digitalization policies and discuss what the turn towards digital inclu-
sion in policy-making signifies.

Attending to digital inclusion

Digital inclusion became a salient policy topic in the context of seeking
sustainable and inclusive digital transformation around 2021. There
were growing concerns about digital exclusion, which was perceived as a
source of inequality and a threat to the visions of digitalization. Such an
understanding has informed the work done on digital inclusion in the
Nordic and Baltic region by the Nordic Council of Ministers. The focus
in these debates is on certain access barriers (such as internet connec-
tivity, device availability, and service complexity) and well as capability
barriers (including digital literacy, language difficulties, and lack of do-
main-specific knowledge (Andersen and Kampmann 2024; p. 2)). Seeing
digital inclusion as related to addressing these barriers indicates a pro-

26 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
cess-oriented understanding in which inclusion is a “tool” for obtaining
the digitalization targets of the past two decades.
To illustrate this expansion of current digitalization policies, of the 19
government digitalization strategies that were published in the Nordic
and Baltic countries between 2021 and 2023, approximately half address
digital inclusion as an issue that should be targeted by policy (European
Commission, 2021a and 2021b). This indicates an increasing interest in
closing the digital divide (van Dijk 2006), but does it also mean that gov-
ernments are developing a citizen-centered approach to public digitaliza-
tion for the future? Or is digital inclusion rather a way of asking citizens
to perform “better” in their use of public digital services?
Let us consider two “working models” of digital inclusion that we
see at the moment. The first model is the one currently in use by gov-
ernments in Scandinavia. This model considers digital inclusion as the
“bringing up to speed” of the citizen to make use of the digital services
and platforms that are in place or in the making. In this model, digi-
tal inclusion means including citizens in the digital systems by offering
skills training. According to this model, if citizens cannot become users
of those systems, they can get an exception. Digital inclusion thus im-
plies that continued digitalization is the main priority, and that as many
citizens as possible should “get on board”.
The other “working model” of digital inclusion argues that citizens
are entitled to live well and benefit from the digital society regardless
of their digital capabilities. In this model, digital inclusion means that
citizens are legally and institutionally included. This model implies that
if society’s institutions fail to service the citizens, the institutions must
adjust. This includes changing how the state fulfills its obligations vis
á vis citizens rather than the other way around. This model implies that
state authorities regulate the companies that offer digital technologies
towards more rights-based and participatory approaches to systems.
The first model is the one currently in use by Scandinavian govern-
ments. The other is expressed by the European Commission in its defini-
tion of digital inclusion:

Digital Inclusion relates to seamless, transparent, accessible and us-

er-friendly digital government services. Citizens must be able to use

D i g i ta l i n c lu s i o n a s t h e n e w p o l i c y wav e 27
 such digital services without having legal knowledge. The members
of our societies should have the opportunity to help shape the digital
transformation and share their ideas and content with others unim-
peded, while respecting the rights of third parties. The public sector
should encourage such wider participation in policy-making by in-
volving society in the design of public services through co-creation,
experimentation and collaboration. (European Commission, 2022)

The European Commission has a rights-based and participation-ori-

ented definition, which we consider stands in contrast to a barrier-fo-
cused definition of digital inclusion. In particular, we think it could help
expand and nuance the actions taken by the Nordic countries, which are
currently scouting for a way to monitor the problem of digital inclusion.
According to the think tank Digital Europe, which works for the Nordic
Council of Ministers, the lack of a shared definition makes it difficult
to monitor the problems that digitalization causes. It also argues that
a shared definition would greatly improve the possibilities for alleviat-
ing problems of exclusion, since a shared definition would allow for the
monitoring of people’s experience, use, and satisfaction of digitalization.
Such monitoring is considered to be significant both for creating the at-
tention necessary for political prioritization and to ensure the follow-up.
Consequently, the attention is currently directed towards “more consist-
ent and comprehensive monitoring” (Andersen and Kampmann 2024,
p. 3). This requires shared definitions, indicators and metrics, and con-
sistent and comprehensive monitoring of efforts and their impacts, in
relation to digital access, digital capability and level of digital exclusion
(ibid.).
In this book, we are sympathetic towards efforts to identify, measure,
monitor and evaluate digital inclusion based on quantitative indicators,
but we are also attentive to the potential problems of putting a num-
ber on such a complicated phenomenon. If the effects of digitalization
efforts become subject to monitoring and evaluation, it might indeed
mean that governments would take a more citizen-centered approach.
However, one of the big issues in measuring this way is that non-use and
partial use are very difficult to capture. It could potentially make a tre-
mendous difference to all who experience exclusion from digital services

28 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
if open questions (e.g. “How do you experience digitalization?”) took the
front seat. This way, policy-makers would get a better idea of who and
what live in the shadows of current digitalization policies (Ertner & Win-
thereik 2022).

The Nordic countries as frontrunners

In Norway, Sweden and Denmark, public-sector digitalization has not
been left entirely to the market, but has been encouraged, guided, framed
and decided by public policy, in close collaboration with market actors.
Strategies have taken the shape of government or sectoral strategies sub-
suming to varying degrees the expectations of citizens, EU legislation,
innovation frameworks, and ongoing national reforms and requirements
for the public sector. One characteristic of Nordic digitalization policies
is the production of benchmark instruments for competition and com-
parison. Competition requires comparability, and therefore sharing data
on digitalization’s progress has become a common strategy. In 2021, the
European Commission (EC) set targets for the 2030 policy agenda, “Path
to the Digital Decade”, which included increasing digital skills, connec-
tivity, and digitalized public services. To measure how they are doing
with respect to their strategies, the Nordic countries frequently monitor
their progress; benchmarking is conducted with measurement tools such
as the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), which is a yearly rank-
ing (Norway is not part of this ranking, as it is not an EU member state).
DESI assesses EU countries’ digitalization according to four overall indi-
cators: human capital, connectivity, integration of digital technology in
business, and digital public services. Each indicator is divided into several
sub-indicators on which countries provide data and against which they
are measured.
As mentioned already, the benchmarks do not measure how peo-
ple experience public digitalization. The one thing that is monitored is
whether people know how to use the required digital solutions. In 2021,
the EC commented on the lack of increase of digital skills. The increase
was considered insufficient for the goal of “80 percent of the population
[having] basic digital skills”. Maybe as a result of the lack of increase in

D i g i ta l i n c lu s i o n a s t h e n e w p o l i c y wav e 29
how citizens performed according to this measure, in the 2023 DESI
ranking, “digital skills” became a focus area. It has now replaced the in-
dicator “human capital”, which suggests that digital skills are monitored
closely across the EU.6
Another measurement tool in addition to DESI is the eGoverment
Benchmark Index, which is used to compare the digital maturity of pub-
lic-sector services. Here citizens are framed as users, and providing us-
er-friendly solutions will contribute to improving a service’s digital ma-
turity. Digital maturity is monitored using the following parameters:

1. User centricity. To what extent are services provided online? How mo-
bile-friendly are they? And what online support and feedback mecha-
nisms are in place?
2. Transparency. Are public administrations providing clear, openly
communicated information about how their services are delivered?
Are they transparent about policy-making and digital service design
processes, as well as the way people’s personal data is being processed?
3. Key enablers. What technological enablers are in place for the delivery
of eGovernment services?
4. Cross-border mobility. How easily are citizens from abroad able to ac-
cess and use the online services?7

These rankings seek to set goals and follow up on them per country and
region. There is a certain technology-centricity built into them, as they
seem to assume that if the functionality works, the technology will ser-
vice everybody equally well. And one finds a bit of Nordic exceptionalism
in how they are approached. For example, Nordregio8 emphasizes “the
Nordic advantage”, stating that “the Nordic countries should be seen as

6. The 2023 DESI is available as a dashboard where single indicators can be com-
pared and graphics presented based on two or more countries https://digi-
tal-decade-desi.digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/datasets/desi/charts
7. https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/library/egovernment-benchmark-
2023#:~:text=The%20eGovernment%20Benchmark%20monitors%20Eu-
rope‘s,governments%20in%202021%20and%202022.
8. Nordregio is an international research center for regional development and
planning in the Nordic and Baltic countries https://nordregio.org

30 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
digital frontrunners in the European and even global context” (Randall
and Berlina 2019). Thereby, Nordregio highlights the competition aspect
of public digitalization as it indicates the need to not only be a techno-
logically advanced region, but also be seen by others as internationally
leading.

Digital inclusion as remedial action

The Nordic countries hold the top positions in international rankings,
but they are also in front when it comes to documenting the negative
effects of the digital transformation (Digital Government Denmark and
KL, 2021). To take cautionary action, the 2021 declaration from the Nor-
dic Council of Ministers promoted digital inclusion as a way of prevent-
ing the increase of digital inequalities. It states:

[The] lack of digital skills, digital literacy, sufficient connectiv-

ity or access to digital public services forms the basis of inequality
in digitalized, 21st-century societies. These digital divides chal-
lenge us as public authorities to develop policy measures to sup-
port and ensure the inclusion of everyone in our societies in the
digital transformation. Everyone should benefit from digitaliza-
tion regardless of age, wealth, education, or level of digital skills.
(Nordic Council of Ministers, 2021)9

Digital inclusion is presented here, firstly, as based on a combination

of technical access, knowledge, and skills. For citizens this means they
should have sufficient internet connectivity and access, and for public au-
thorities that they should provide digital services that are “accessible, re-
liable and usable”, including interoperable systems that make exchanges
of information easy and protect citizens’ privacy. Secondly, digital inclu-
sion is represented as centered on the “digital divide”, suggesting that the
capacities of individual citizens, their “human capital”, is the main target
of governing this area. In line with this, the declaration states that “we

9. Nordic Council of Ministers, 2021, https://pub.norden.org/nord2022-007/

D i g i ta l i n c lu s i o n a s t h e n e w p o l i c y wav e 31
will strive to implement measures to make digital services more accessi-
ble to all our inhabitants”, and “to ensure that those who do not possess
the necessary level of skills will get the opportunity to acquire [it]”.
The problematization made here is limited seen in the light of our
research, which shows digital exclusion to have a much broader problem
base. Overall, the problems of limiting digital exclusion to a matter of
addressing barriers such as technical access and digital competence are
threefold:

1. It puts blame on individuals and is too narrow as to what constitutes

the real challenges, which are relational and therefore systemic.
2. It makes digital citizenship non-optional. As a result, it makes no space
for promoting alternative strategies or facilitating non-digital options.
3. Monitoring of digital inclusion can happen both alongside and post
exclusion. Strategies will be reactive rather than proactive, and there-
fore they will tend to be conservative and reinforce the status quo.

Almost as an afterthought to decades of intense digitalization, poli-

cy-makers have become keen to put action behind the original vision that
digitalization should be for all, promoting the idea that no one should
be left behind in the digital transition. From a policy perspective, how
has digital inclusion become a matter of concern in Scandinavia? How
can we see it in concrete government papers? And what are policy-mak-
ers’ most recent concerns regarding citizens who are not benefitting from
public-sector digitalization?

Digital inclusion as a growing matter of concern

Now let us take a closer look at how digital inclusion is addressed in
Denmark, Norway and Sweden by state actors. With the mandatory ap-
proach launched as part of the so-called first digitalization “wave”10 in

10. Digitalization in the Danish public sector is said to have happened in three
“waves”. This refers to the bulk of services that were digitalized each time. The
waves have been connected to other welfare reforms.

32 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
2013, Denmark has also been the first to detect and document signifi-
cant differences in how the population benefits from digitalization. In
2021, the report “Digital Inclusion in the Digitalized Society” saw the
light of day. Co-authored by Digital Government Denmark and the As-
sociation of Municipalities (KL), it was the first survey to raise digital
inclusion as a policy issue.
The digitally excluded or those lacking access are mostly referenced
in passing in the policy papers we have examined, at least in the initial
stage. When mentioned during the initial stages of public-sector digital-
ization, they were considered to be either a phenomenon that will pass
when younger generations take over and older generations acquire the
necessary experience and skills, or a phenomenon that affects particular
groups of citizens, for whom special assistance will therefore have to be
offered. Time has shown that digital inclusion-exclusion is not a binary
phenomenon, but processual and relational; digital vulnerability and
exclusion can appear and disappear throughout life. The recent policy
focus on digital inclusion seeks to take a new approach, whereby poli-
cy-makers have begun to acknowledge the problem.
Digital exclusion has acquired more media attention in the last few
years. In Denmark, the journalist Jakob Sorgenfri Kjær, in a series of ar-
ticles in the national news media Politiken during summer 2022, showed
that digital exclusion deviate from standard demographic divisions like
age, gender, education, and income. Kjær problematized access to digital
services as a human rights issue that should be of concern to everyone.11
The report “Digital Inclusion in the Digitalized Society” mentions risk
factors that can lead to or exacerbate digital exclusion. These are old age,
migration, disabilities, limited education, and unemployment; of these
factors, that most frequently mentioned is old age. For example, the only
group consistently identified in the policy documents in relation to digi-
tal inclusion consists of elderly citizens. Their issues are described as lack

11. The original features article series on “The Digital Underclass” https://politiken.
dk/tag/main/Den_digitale_underklasse, and is presented as a book entitled Kig
Op! (Politikens Forlag, 2024). The book can be seen as a continuation of a dec-
ade of grassroot movement efforts towards humane digitalization, for example
https://dataethics.eu and https://analogist.dk.

D i g i ta l i n c lu s i o n a s t h e n e w p o l i c y wav e 33
of experience with technology, a greater need for face-to-face interaction,
and a lack of access to advanced technologies.
The report argues that there is a higher risk of exclusion if you belong
to more than one of these groups. Exclusion is thus intersectional, which
means that the risk factors are hard to pin down once and for all. This
is why the institutions behind the survey and the report have frequently
stated that addressing digital exclusion politically is challenging due to
the many grey zones in the mapping. The report and other strategy doc-
uments identify a number of (partly overlapping) groups of citizens fac-
ing challenges with digitalization in various ways and to various degrees.
Generally, however, the numbers and statements connected with digital
exclusion are surrounded by considerable uncertainty, and problems are
often identified as connected with individuals, their skills and resources,
their circumstances, or their abilities. This makes pertinent a focus on
practices rather than numbers, qualities rather than quantities, and con-
crete examples of digital exclusion and inclusion along with systematic-
monitoring of digital exclusion.

Legal frameworks for digital citizenship

The welfare states have institutions that are intended to safeguard the
underlying social principles. This includes laws and other regulatory
frameworks, as well as organizations tasked with issuing recommenda-
tions and monitoring compliance.
In Denmark, citizens and private companies are by law required to
conduct all of their written interaction with the government online, us-
ing Digital Post or government self-service systems and portals. As men-
tioned, exemptions are possible under certain conditions. The Public
Administration Act, Forvaltningsloven, is essentially technology-neutral,
which means that it should be applicable under all circumstances, but
it has not been updated to take into account the new challenges that
digitalization poses to good administration and governance. As written
communication is mandatorily digital, the expectation has been that
face-to-face communication will be simultaneously replaced by digital
communication. Thus, access to face-to-face service has been restricted in

34 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
various ways, for example by putting limitations on personal drop-in at
citizen service centers in Denmark. Now meeting times must be booked
online.12
Acknowledging the issue that many people receive help from relatives,
the Agency for Digital Government Denmark has sent out guidelines for
digital helpers.13 In line with this focus on helpers, in 2023 the Agency
made it possible for volunteer organizations to apply for financial sup-
port for IT courses for their user groups. Along with a couple of other
NGOs, the Association of Drop-in Centers, with which we have collabo-
rated in our research, received financial support for staff and volunteers
to run courses to train users who, due to being homeless, poor, or feeling
unsafe when interacting with the authorities, are at risk in terms of digi-
talization. In terms of concrete action taken to help the helpers, a digital
power of attorney (DPOA) can be issued at borger.dk, which allows citi-
zens to act on behalf of other citizens, or have others act on their behalf.
The system does not cover all types of DPOA, and it does not enable the
use of a printed version of a digitally provided DPOA when calling on an-
other person’s behalf. To sum up, there is a growing acknowledgement of
issues related to digital exclusion, as well as a few governmentally driven
attempts to solve specific problems, including establishing a framework
for helping the helpers.
Digital Government Denmark has an office for inclusion and digital
services (Kontoret for Inklusion og Digital Service), the purpose of which is
to ensure that all citizens have access to government information and
services, no matter how “digital” they are – even if they are not digital
at all. In practice, the focus is and has been on three things: 1) helping
citizens become more digital, 2) making digital systems more accessible
to citizens, and 3) providing assistance for citizens who need it in order
to interact with the government online. Among the office’s responsibil-
ities is monitoring the authorities’ compliance with the “Law on Web
Accessibility”, which has implemented the EU directive on web accessi-

12. https://www.tv2kosmopol.dk/hvidovre/kommune-sparer-pa-borgerservice-nu-
skal-du-bestille-tid
13. https://www.borger.dk/hjaelp-og-vejledning/hvad-har-du-brug-for-hjaelp-til/
saadan-kan-og-maa-du-hjaelpe-digitalt

D i g i ta l i n c lu s i o n a s t h e n e w p o l i c y wav e 35
bility in Danish Law since 2018. The office also organizes a network for
digital inclusion that focuses on getting input from interest groups and
organizations in relation to supporting and improving efforts to help cit-
izens who have difficulties with digital access and communication. The
network is open to organizations representing citizens with physical or
mental impairment, young people, elderly people, immigrants from the
global south, the socially vulnerable and other so-called “IT-challenged”
citizens. Some of the NGOs and other organizations in the network have
their own initiatives involving digital inclusion.
In Norway, several agencies deal with issues related to digital inclu-
sion. The Norwegian Digitalization Agency (Digitaliseringsdirektoratet,
DigDir) is the Norwegian government’s tool for digitalization of the pub-
lic sector, whose role in this matter is to help develop and implement the
government’s ICT policies and the governing of shared components and
solutions, and to coordinate digitalization actions. Its tasks also include
supervision and checking that the rules and regulations are followed. The
Norwegian Directorate for Children, Youth and Family Affairs (BufDir:
Barne-, ungdoms- og familiedirektoratet) is the government entity with
responsibility for setting the policy on universal design. The Norwegian
Board of Technology (Teknologirådet) is tasked with identifying techno-
logical challenges, advising the government and generating public debate
on the opportunities and challenges of new technologies. The Norwe-
gian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS) runs a service
called DigiHjelpen, aimed at helping local authorities supervise users of
digital services; this is mostly supplied either through public libraries or
info-service offices. Among other voluntary organizations, Seniornett
has been active in helping the elderly for 25 years, and has local units
across the country that offer introductory courses and support.
Until 2018, issues related to digital inclusion in Sweden were scattered
across several public agencies and non-governmental organizations. In
pursuing the objective of becoming the best in the world at utilizing
the opportunities created by digitalization, as stated in the 2011 Digi-
tal Agenda, the government established a national digitalization council
(Digitaliseringsrådet) in 2017. One of its responsibilities is to promote
the implementation of the digitalization strategy (Nationell digitaliser-
ingsstrategi) from 2017, based on five interim objectives: digital compe-

36 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
tence, digital innovation, digital security, digital infrastructure, and dig-
ital management. In 2019, the Digitalization Council worked with the
issue of digital participation and collaborated with universities to map
research on digital exclusion. The results were published in the report
“Delaktighet i en digital tid: En fördjupning med förslag”.14
The Swedish Agency for Participation (Myndigheten för delaktighet)
was instituted in 2014 as a merger of Myndigheten för handikappolitisk
samordning (Handisam) and parts of the non-profit association Hjälp-
medelsinstitutet. It is an expert agency that promotes work with the
implementation of the disability policy by developing and spreading in-
formation on obstacles to participation, and supporting public-sector
bodies. It also conducts annual follow-ups on how municipalities, re-
gions, and the authorities work with accessibility and participation for
people with disabilities. Its take on digital inclusion is broader than mere
access, as it seeks to safeguard democratic involvement more generally.
To respond to the authorities’ obligations to provide service and ac-
cessibility to all citizens, several formally organized support structures
are in place, such as citizens’ offices and public libraries. Citizens’ offices,
which are often located in the larger cities and placed in areas where res-
idents have few financial resources, offer personal service and quick an-
swers to various everyday questions; here, citizens can submit forms to
preschools, schools, and social services, fax and copy, or surf the inter-
net. Many public libraries also work with reducing the digital gaps, and
several provide help and guidance on digital technology in various ways.
As part of either citizen offices or public libraries the Swedish Internet
Foundation has initiated so-called DigidelCenters, where citizens can get
help with digital issues, try out technology and take part in activities to
increase their digital competence to be able to actively choose digital al-
ternatives and services.

14. Preceding this, in 2015 the government signed a letter of intent for the digital
renewal of the public sector in Sweden in collaboration with the Swedish Asso-
ciation of Local Authorities and Regions (SKR). The Agency responsible became
the Agency for Digital Government (DIGG).

D i g i ta l i n c lu s i o n a s t h e n e w p o l i c y wav e 37
 Citizens can also get assistance from various third-sector organiza-
tions. Personligt ombud in Sweden offers support for people with mental
disabilities, and aims to give them the opportunity to live more inde-
pendent lives, with the opportunity to take part in services related to care,
support, service, rehabilitation, and employment on equal terms. Person-
ligt ombud is often described as “the help to help”. SeniorNet Sweden,
which is a non-profit, national, and independent association that assists
seniors in taking part in the opportunities that digitalization offers, is an
example of a more established institution that aids citizens with respect
to digital issues.
Thus, there are several initiatives that support agencies and organi-
zations that focus on inclusion issues. And more of these are likely to be
seen in the years to come. Some initiatives are policy-driven, while others
have formed independently. Their existence points to digital inclusion as
an issue that is hard to ignore.

Conclusion
In this chapter, we have argued that in the Nordic countries, digital in-
clusion in its current form means working to increase the populations’
digital literacy and provide digital access for everyone. This amounts to
bringing the citizens “up to speed”, thus bringing them “on-board” the
digitalized welfare state. We see little evidence that the digitalization
strategies attend seriously to the citizens who find using digital services
challenging or undesirable. While there is media coverage, new networks
and help organized by NGOs, we find it a pertinent question if the policy
attention focused on digital inclusion signals something new or if it is yet
another “turn of the digitalization screw”? What might it take for digital
inclusion policies to seriously and responsibly address the diversity of the
Nordic populations?
The citizens who are subjects of the strategies and frameworks are not
addressed as agents, but rather as recipients of what the digital society
brings. We are critical of an understanding of digital inclusion that only
targets the reduction of barriers that cause exclusion. We recommend
that these (in themselves worthwhile aims) should be complemented

38 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
with alternatives that prioritize ambitions to secure dignity, rights, soli-
darity and equality in digitalized societies. These might imply directions
other than continued, expansive and expensive digitalization of the pub-
lic sector.
Public-sector digitalization in the Nordic countries has in many ways
gone hand in hand with other important developments in the welfare
states. The movement from welfare to workfare has entailed an increased
individualization of problems and solutions, and a “responsibilization”
of the individual through the ideal of an entrepreneurial self (Rose 1992),
who both causes and solves his or her own problems. In the same way,
government digitalization policies have put the onus on citizens to be-
come digitally competent and conduct their business with the govern-
ment on their own, online, as government services are digital-by-default,
which implies exclusion for already disadvantaged groups (Schou & Pors
2019). The digitalization of government services therefore should not
only be a matter of introducing new technologies into established ways
of working and relating to the state authorities as a citizen. Instead, pol-
icy-makers must consider how to better understand the ways in which
government services are conceived, designed, and delivered. This should
involve a broader and more diverse understanding of the citizen-users.
Digitalization strategies and policies namely indicate a reification of
a citizen as a user. This notion of the citizen as a user goes well together
with considering digital technologies as products, rather than an intri-
cate part of fundamental welfare services. This idea comes with a clear
indication of who is on the inside and valued (the digital citizen), and
who is still on the outside, as incapable, unskilled or not yet fully digital.
If decision- and policy-makers do not challenge this view of the citizen,
the danger is that we break with fundamental welfare values in Scandi-
navia, such as solidarity and equal rights. Policy-making therefore needs
to be in touch with the realities on the ground. It is these realities that we
aim to describe in this book. At present, the concerns about upholding
fundamental values seem to be challenged by the focus on cybercrime
and geopolitical threats. For instance, in the recent Danish IT strategy
(Regeringen, 2022), cybersecurity is seen as much more important than
creating digital societies for diverse citizen populations.

D i g i ta l i n c lu s i o n a s t h e n e w p o l i c y wav e 39
 The concern of this chapter has been to present elements in the stra-
tegic-political landscape in Scandinavia. It is this landscape that frames
everyday life in a digitalized welfare. In the next chapter, we shift our at-
tention to focus on a key element in the strategies: the digital citizen.

40 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 CHAPTER 3

The partially digital

citizen

In the preceding chapter, we introduced the digitalization of public ser-

vices in Norway, Sweden and Denmark. We now turn to how digitali-
zation unfolds in specific situations with the participation of different
people with different tasks and concerns. In the following chapters, we
will describe how digitalization ambitions require human work “on the
ground”, work that is often not recognized by those who develop and
implement the digitalization strategies. One reason why such work is re-
quired is directly connected to the conception of the citizen as a technology
user. In this chapter, we seek to problematize the notion of the digital citi-
zen as an autonomous and capable technology user.
The conventional conception of the citizen as avid technology user in-
forms the design of digital technologies and platforms. It is an idea that
gets inscribed the new technologies that are built for the public sector.
The result is that new designs and solutions do not fit the actual users.
Then the category of “non-digital citizens” emerges, even though this is
also a problematic category, as almost everybody in a digitalized society
uses digital platforms for something. Thus, the focus on citizens as “dig-
ital” produces its own conceptual counterpart in the non-digital. In this
chapter, we look at the problems of such a binary understanding, to bet-
ter grasp the nuances of digital citizenship.
A main reason for this is to avoid blaming individuals or groups due
to their life circumstances or the choices they make. When attention is
directed to citizens who are at risk of digital exclusion, it has become

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 41
common to characterize them as a group that has a problem. Many talk
about these people – a very diverse population – as “vulnerable”. Typi-
cally, this happens with reference to socio-economic and demographic
characterizations such as age (with older people more at risk of digital ex-
clusion), migrant status (with people not speaking the majority language
as being at risk of exclusion), somatic or mental health challenges (with
cognitive disabilities mentioned as a risk factor), having no or a short ed-
ucation or being out of work (with not understanding the bureaucratic
language seen as a risk factor).
There are limitations to not only the binary distinction between dig-
ital and non-digital citizens, but also these group-based categorizations.
They are reifying and problem-oriented, rather than productive and gen-
erative for welcoming interventions. Trying to make everybody into dig-
ital citizens in the same way generates a lot of friction. What if a person
does not want inclusion? How are we to secure the rights and responsibil-
ities of this person in digitalized societies?
In this chapter we will propose a way of thinking about the user based
on a combined focus on the individual person, their social relations, and
their life trajectory. A whole life involves several transitions and a host
of different situations. We therefore propose that the conventional user
should be given a different label – the partially digital citizen. We are inspired
by the inspiration Donna Haraway takes from Marilyn Strathern in say-
ing that “it matters what ideas we use to think other ideas (with)” (Hara-
way 2016: 12); words make worlds, as do technologies. This is why we are
convinced that digital service designers and systems architects may work
with more nuanced (inclusive) solutions if they have a more nuanced lan-
guage that can spur their understanding of the user. We propose the par-
tially digital citizen, as we hope this concept will help developers and de-
cision-makers understand the user of public digital services differently.
We will emphasize the heterogeneity among users and the variability in
their relation to the digital over the course of a life. As a consequence,
there is a need to recognize the users’ social network and the informal
digital support that this social network can offer. In this context, infor-
mal digital support refers to the often unrecognized and non-formalized
assistance provided by relatives, volunteers, and professionals to help in-
dividuals navigate and use digital technologies and services.

42 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 The theoretical backdrop for what we do in this chapter is the idea
that technologies afford certain types of use and hinder others. In the
words of Science and Technology Studies scholars Madeleine Akrich and
Bruno Latour, technologies have in-built scripts guiding how we engage
with them, which stimulate some kinds of usage and discourage oth-
ers (Akrich and Latour 1992). To exemplify, a person who can read and
write Danish/Norwegian/Swedish and is familiar with the bureaucracies
of these countries is more likely to be successful in her use pattern with
respect to digital services than a person who does not command any of
these languages and has little understanding of how the public sector is
organized.1 Certain users are better equipped for the use of digital tech-
nologies than others, due to their closer alignment with the ideal user
model for whom the services are designed. These users are likely to find
it easy to navigate, understand, and utilize digital tools and services, be-
cause their needs and behavior patterns are those that the technology
designers had in mind during development (Hyysalo & Johnson 2015).
This can lead to discrimination whereby those who do not fit as well into
this ideal user profile may face greater challenges and require additional
support to use the same technology effectively. Put differently, users be-
come so in their engagement with technology; their capacities for use or
non-use are co-produced with the technologies with which they interact.
To understand how users are considered in particular ways by the digital
technologies employed in public services, and vice versa (Woolgar 1990;
Oudshoorn & Pinch 2003), we first describe which expectations are pre-
sented to citizens as users. We then argue that we both need new ways of
considering users as more diverse, and follow through on insights about
user diversity in the design of public services. Finally, we discuss how we
can understand use as a process of mutuality, and thereby add nuance to
the imagined properties of the citizen as a user.
Our proposed new concept, the partially digital citizen, plays with
the more commonly used classifiers, such as “the digital citizen”, “the
non-digital citizen”, “the analogue citizen”, and “the digitally disabled”

1. See also Gibson, J. J. (1977). The theory of affordances. Hilldale, USA, 1(2), 67-82.

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 43
or “digitally vulnerable citizen”.2 The partially digital citizen is not a sim-
ple descriptor, as we do not intend merely to add another category to the
list. It has grown out of empirical research, and is descriptive, but it is also
an analytic tool, a way of raising questions about digital citizenship as a
leading trope in today’s welfare societies.
As an analytical lens, the notion of the partially digital citizen has been
developed as a response to the idea that in a digital society everybody can
be “upgraded” and become “digital”. In the idea of a digital citizen rests
an understanding that it is possible to create a seamless fit between a
digital technology and a human user. It will rarely be the case that there
is no friction. The partially digital citizen is an attempt to normalize this
friction. Thus, it inspires consideration of digital competences (what
are they, precisely?) and user capacities (who has them?) as always in the
making. The partially digital citizen helps us understand citizenship in
digitalized societies as an “identity” that is made through many different
types of social and technical relations, and co-produced in specific situ-
ations. In other words, citizenship in digitalized societies is the outcome
of a process that is shaped not only by technical environments, but also
by social, political, regulatory, and cultural conditions. The intervention
of a concept like the partially digital citizen transforms the question of
how people become digital citizens and “succeed” in the digital state;
rather, the issue becomes one of whether digitalized situations allow for
a good-enough fit between the technology, the organizational support,
and a person’s needs at a given point in time. Is a system’s ways of afford-
ing task completion sufficient? Are frontline workers respectful? Do they
allow for diversity and nuance, and respond to the complexity of a life
situation?
A view of the citizen as partially digital invites a situational view of
digital technology use. A situational view is different from a binary view
on citizen users – in which, at least in the discourse, citizens are regarded

2. We observe that the categories that seek to highlight a problem are quite con-
descending. In our opinion the concept “the digital disabled” would be more
respectful if it were reframed as “the digitally disempowered”. There is a gen-
eral tendency to speak about and not with the people that are digitally excluded
(Chapter 8).

44 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
as either technologically competent or incompetent. In practice, it is dif-
ferent, of course. The partially digital citizen thus invites us to consider
and acknowledge heterogeneity among citizens and use situations, as
well as what makes digital citizenship possible. As a “figure of thought”,
the notion of the partially digital citizen adds nuance to the concepts
and language currently in use, invites respect for the struggle that people
face when they are excluded, and is a preliminary step in finding ways to
alleviate that struggle.

The quest for universality

Government services should be available to all members of the public.
However, in this regard, it is important to note that public services can
sometimes involve partnerships with private companies. This collabora-
tion between the government and private entities can occur in two dis-
tinct ways: firstly, digital services can be provided by a public-sector en-
tity (national, regional, or local). For instance, a national welfare service
agency distributes unemployment benefits, and the local municipality
organizes primary health- and social care services. Even though the ser-
vice is delivered by a public entity, the digital solutions and infrastructure
will often be delivered by commercial technology companies. Secondly,
services for the public can be provided by a private actor, who is subject
to regulation and governance by the public administration. Privately pro-
vided public services include public utility services such as telecommu-
nications, water-supply networks, or power supply, but may also include
transportation, education, or healthcare services.
Common to both kinds of public services in a welfare state is that
they are supposed to be universal. That is, they should be accessible to all
citizens, although some services may be restricted based on eligibility or
needs assessment. Political visions of digitalizing public services build on
the assumption that the new digital services will be available to everyone
– in other words, regardless of ownership (publicly or privately owned),
these services should be universally accessible. By implication, to uphold
the principle of universal access when digitalizing services, the expecta-
tion is that citizens will become digital citizens who are able to access and

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 45
utilize digital services. Digitalization therefore comes with new demands
on citizens, as well as employees in the public sector. We will now turn to
exploring more concretely what is required and expected from the citizen
when the public sector becomes digitalized. Research on digital inclusion
has tended to address three major aspects that influence how citizens
benefit (or not) from the digital world: whether they have access to it,
whether they have the required competence to navigate it, and whether
they have the personal ability and motivation to avail themselves of the
opportunities. Let us consider each one in turn.

Access
To be considered a “digital citizen” in the context of public digital ser-
vices, two key elements are necessary: internet access (preferably through
a broadband connection), and access to digital devices (preferably a
smartphone, computer, printer, and scanner). Considerable research on
what has been called the digital divide has addressed how access has been
differently distributed among groups in society (see, e.g. van Deursen &
van Dijk 2019; van Deursen & Helsper 2015). The concept of the digital
divide, which refers to disparities in access to technology and the inter-
net, plays a pivotal role in shaping our understanding of being a “digital
citizen”. Currently, access is not considered to be a major challenge in the
global North, where the majority of the population already has connec-
tivity at home and access to personal devices. For instance, the share of
EU households with internet access has risen from 72% in 2011 to 93%
in 2022 (EUROSTAT, 2022a). 7% without access is a low percentage, but
a lot of people when we consider that many public services are digital. In
2021, 86% of the European population had a mobile service subscription,
and smartphone-based access accounted for 80% of internet connections
(GSMA, 2022).
However, while internet access is predominantly based on broad-
band, the level of coverage is generally lower in rural areas. As an exam-
ple, in Norway, with its challenging geography of extended distances and
mountainous landscape, 10% of the population do not have internet
connections of 100 Mbit/s or higher speeds (NKOM, 2022), while people

46 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
who are not creditworthy struggle to get a mobile subscription or home
internet connectivity.
The ownership of digital devices to access the internet – such as smart-
phones, personal computers, or tablets – is also generally high; however,
in a survey of the Norwegian population in 2021, 18% of respondents
listed the cost of devices and access as a barrier to using the internet
(Bjønnes et al. 2022). While smartphones are widespread and often used
to access the internet, they are not always a suitable device to use for tasks
related to the public services, such as filling out more complex forms or
scanning and uploading documents. However, while a certain propor-
tion of the population do not own personal internet access devices, it is
common for public libraries to offer access to computers, scanners, and
printers to people who need it.

Digital competence
The significance of knowledge, skill, and attitudes has been a central
topic for the second generation of “digital divide” research (see e.g. Harg-
ittai, E. 2001; van Deursen & van Dijk 2011; van Dijk & van Deursen
2014, Scheerder et al. 2017). Digital competence is usually defined as en-
compassing a) knowledge of concepts and facts, b) the ability to carry
out processes (skills), and c) attitudes, such as a disposition or a mindset
to act. Digital competence is perceived as a critical component of future
digital societies, and has received considerable attention within the EU,
which defines it as follows:

Digital competence involves the confident, critical and responsible

use of, and engagement with, digital technologies for learning, at
work, and for participation in society. It includes information and
data literacy, communication and collaboration, media literacy, digi-
tal content creation (including programming), safety (including dig-
ital well-being and competences related to cybersecurity), intellectual
property related questions, problem solving and critical thinking.
(The Council of the European Union 2018)

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 47
The remit for digital competence is no small thing, but broad and mul-
ti-faceted. To understand its comprehensive nature, consider the EU’s
DigComp reference framework as an example. Its definition of digital
competence (Vuorikari et al. 2022) lists 21 specific competences grouped
in five main areas (see Table 2): 1) information and data literacy, 2) com-
munication and collaboration, 3) digital content creation, 4) safety, and
5) problem solving. For each of the five competence areas, a set of specific
competences (comprising knowledge, skills, and attitudes) are listed (see
Table 2). Through concrete “use cases”, these are further categorized into
four proficiency levels: foundational, intermediate, advanced, and highly
specialized.

Competence area Competence

1. Information and 1.1 Browsing, searching and filtering data, information
data literacy and digital content
1.2 Evaluating data, information and digital content
1.3 Managing data, information and digital content
2 Communication 2.1 Interacting through digital technologies
and collaboration 2.2 Sharing through digital technologies
2.3 Engaging in citizenship through digital technologies
2.4 Collaborating through digital technologies
2.5 Netiquette
2.6 Managing digital identity
3. Digital content 3.1 Developing digital content
creation 3.2 Integrating and re-elaborating digital content
3.3 Copyright and licenses
3.4 Programming
4. Safety 4.1 Protecting devices
4.2 Protecting personal data and privacy
4.3 Protecting health and well-being
4.4 Protecting the environment
5. Problem solving 5.1 Solving technical problems
5.2 Identifying needs and technological responses
5.3 Creatively using digital technologies
5.4 Identifying digital competence gap

TABLE 1: Competence areas in the Digital Competence Framework for Citizens

(DigComp 2.2)

48 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
The EU’s vision for digital transformation (the Digital Decade) sets am-
bitious policy targets related to digital competence. One of these targets
is that a minimum of 80% of the population should have basic digital
skills – that is, people must know how to do at least one activity related
to each competency area. Studies show that in 2021, 54% of people in
the EU aged 16 to 74 had at least basic overall digital skills.3 One may,
of course, wonder how it is possible to verify competence in such a finite
way. The EU uses validated measurement tools based on very concrete
tasks that individuals must perform. A representative sample of individ-
uals from each country are asked whether they can perform these tasks
or not. While one can question what this is a measure of, this creates a
comparable measure across countries. New measures are included occa-
sionally. For example, among the 259 examples of digital competences,
“balancing the use of digital technologies with non-use” (competence
#189) was recently added (Balslev and Oehlenschläger 2023).
Here, we start from the premise that digital competence is not really
something a person can “possess” and that this needs to be problema-
tized further. Many people consider themselves “digital”, but prefer not
to use public digital services for critical interaction with the authorities,
or for reasons to do with privacy protection.

Administrative competence and domain skills

To be a digital citizen also requires the ability to perform one’s duties
and claim one’s rights, which requires knowledge about citizenship and
the public administration’s role and procedures. Additionally, the citi-
zen needs to comprehend bureaucratic language and how to participate
in bureaucratic processes, labelled, among other things, as “government
literacy” (Bertot and Jaeger 2008), “administrative literacy” (Grönlund,
Hatakka, and Ask 2007), and “bureaucratic competence” (Gordon 1975).
Skaarup (2020) refers to these competences as domain skills, which is

3. The proportion of digitally skilled population was highest in the Netherlands

and Finland (both 79%), followed by Ireland (70%). The lowest share was re-
corded in Romania (28%) followed by Bulgaria (31%) and Poland (43%) (EU-
ROSTAT, 2022b).

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 49
used as a somewhat more generic term that also captures “the ability to
draw on previous experiences to establish a frame for understanding in-
formation and procedures, and the skills required to grasp what is situ-
ationally important of this bureaucratic frame and to apply this in rela-
tion to the situation, needs, and resources at hand” (ibid., page 11).
Such skills have become more important with the digitalization pro-
cess. When public services become digitalized, many of the earlier oppor-
tunities for face-to-face meetings (either physical or online) are replaced
by online self-service, in which the citizen must provide the required in-
formation, which is then processed either by a human (e.g. a case-worker)
or an algorithm, in the case of automated services. In these situations,
the information-exchange processes shift from verbal to written form;
furthermore, the citizens are on their own to a greater degree than be-
fore. This situation puts concomitant demands on citizens to familiarize
themselves with their rights, opportunities, and duties; it also requires
that they understand whom to contact, what to look for, and how to find
the relevant web form and fill in the required information without being
able to discuss it with a public servant. Missing or erroneous informa-
tion may have financial and legal consequences. It is important to under-
standing not only the terms used (often clad in bureaucratic language),
but also the wider implications of the task. If a citizen does not provide
the correct information when applying for welfare benefits, the conse-
quence may be that the citizen misses a benefit to which they are legally
entitled, or that they get benefits to which they are not entitled, thereby
incurring legal sanctions.

Interest, willingness, and sufficient trust in public services

Both practical access and required competences are necessary for the
successful use of digital services, but not sufficient in themselves – other
aspects of citizens’ attitudes and abilities also matter. A recent study of
the challenges experienced with the digital public services in NAV (the
Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration) lists a number of issues
perceived by employees to contribute to their clients’ digital exclusion
(Midtgård et al. 2022). The study confirms that digital and bureaucratic

50 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
competences are crucial, but also reports barriers that transcend access
and competence.
Citizens experience a number of health-related barriers. Reduced
cognitive functioning (due to age, mental or somatic illness, or trauma)
can cause difficulty in concentrating, making decisions, or remember-
ing. Lack of trust and reduced self-efficacy or sense of accomplishment,
anxiety, or overwhelming fallout from traumatic life events will also of-
ten negatively impact the ability to deal with digital self-services. A dim-
inution of sensory functioning, such as reduced eyesight, hearing, or
dry skin that makes the use of touchscreens difficult can be additional
barriers. There are also several issues related to societal aspects: lacking
knowledge of the language, illiteracy, or low reading/writing skills are
all major barriers to the use of self-services. In addition, compromised
personal finances may preclude ownership of appropriate digital devices,
mobile or internet subscription, access to BankID, or the ability to pay
for print-outs. Some clients have low trust in public authorities; some
suffer from anxiety and mistrust due to prior poor experiences in previ-
ous encounters. Others become vulnerable because they lack an under-
standing of the need to protect sensitive personal information, e.g. when
using a computer in a public environment (Carreras & Winthereik 2022).
The employees in the study emphasize that more complex cases are espe-
cially challenging for citizens, because they do not fit the templates of the
digital services, and often include several public entities across organiza-
tional (and digital) boundaries.

Non-digital citizens
Almost as an afterthought, the progress of public-sector digitalization
was accompanied by the realization that not all citizens were able or
willing to use digital self-services, and that a non-negligible minority
will probably never become “digital citizens”. Competence (or the lack
thereof) has frequently been at the center of the public debate as to why
the fruits of digitalization have not been harvested. The realization is
that, after 10 years of mandatory digitalization in Denmark, a large part
of the population still experiences challenges.

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 51
 The Danish Agency for Digitalization estimated in 2021 that be-
tween 17% and 22% of the adult Danish population were “digitally
vulnerable” (Digitaliseringsstyrelsen 2021). Around 7.5% of the popula-
tion were exempted from compulsory digital communication with the
public sector and, in addition, it was estimated that 10–15 % of the pop-
ulation experienced challenges and received help with using digital ser-
vices. In a 2023 survey, 10% of Danish respondents reported that they
experienced challenges with digitalization to a “high” or “very high”
degree, and an additional 25% to a “certain degree” (Epinion 2023). A
Norwegian survey on the population’s self-reported digital competence
concluded that around 14% of the population were “at risk of digital
exclusion” due to no or weak digital skills (Bjønnes et al. 2022), and
3% of the population reported no use at all of either the internet or
digital devices. In Sweden, 6% reported that they were non-users of in-
ternet and digital services (Internetstiftelsen 2022). Surveys and studies
of this kind tend to point to specific groups of people at risk of digital
exclusion – typically, a larger proportion among the elderly do not have
access to or use digital services. Other groups often mentioned include
people who are outside of working life for various reasons: people with
disabilities, people with somatic health challenges that affect motor,
sensory, or cognitive functioning, people with mental health challenges,
people using substances, and immigrants who have not yet learned the
language (Midtgård et al. 2022). In Denmark, the services Sundhed.dk
(Health.dk) and Borger.dk (Citizen.dk) each offer digital power-of-attor-
ney services that are easy to use and terminate for people with access to
informal digital support.
It is worth noting that while the digital citizen is depicted as an indi-
vidual, non-digital citizens have, so far, been depicted as segments. One
exception was in October 2023, when a Danish court decided that a cit-
izen whose social benefits had been withdrawn because he had not re-
acted to an important deadline was not guilty of this “crime” and should
have the money back. The man’s wife was digital on his behalf, but she
was away on a trip during the period and could not open her husband’s
digital mail. The court case established the man’s right to be non-digital.
The judicial think-tank Justitia, which led the case, described it as a case
about digital vulnerability (Eiriksson 2023). The verdict showed, for the

52 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
first time, a non-digital citizen as a person, and not just a member of a
segment.

Moving on from “digital” vs. “non-digital”

However, it is not only the groups classified as “vulnerable” who strug-
gle. In 2022, the Norwegian Consumer Council studied the population’s
experience with online payment for goods and services. Following the
introduction of the EU’s Payment Services Directive on 1 January 2021,
web shops were obliged to conduct strong customer authentication, and
most chose to implement such authentication by using BankID (the fi-
nancial services industry’s identification solution) to place orders and
effect payment. In the study, 43% of the respondents reported that there
were people within their close family or social circle whom they regularly
helped order or pay for goods and services. A surprising 38% had expe-
rienced great difficulties in making one or more purchases, or had not
been able to shop at all, and it was younger respondents that most fre-
quently reported that they had problems (Norwegian Consumer Coun-
cil 2022). A major reason for these problems was an absence of access to
tools such as smartphones, the digital ID required by financial services
(BankID), digital payment services, or debit and credit cards. Some re-
spondents did not want to use these tools due to a lack of interest and/
or skills, the fear of making mistakes, or because they did not want to
be tracked. Others reported that disabilities and lack of internet access
were hindrances, or that their banks did not give them access to these
tools (ibid., p. 15). This implies that there is a large group of people who
are able to deal with some tasks in the digital world, but not others.
There can also be citizens who share the work of being digital with other
people – for instance, they may use the internet for surfing, social media,
and gaming, but lack the tools or competences to use more complex
services.
To explain the need for alternative depictions of citizens in digitalized
welfare societies, we now present two examples. The first vignette illus-
trates how digital capacities can change according to one’s life circum-
stances, for example, if sudden illness occurs. The second vignette shows

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 53
how a change in the functioning of a communication channel between
service providers and citizens can also lead to exclusion – for example, a
change in a communication platform may disable someone who used to
manage her life. From the outside, the change may seem small, but the
point we would like to make by presenting this vignette is that whether
a circumstance or a change in life conditions is severe or not in terms of
digital exclusion depends on several other factors.

Example 1: Astrid’s father and mother-in-law

Astrid has aging relatives. Both her father and mother-in-law were dig-
itally competent and self-sufficient for years. They had used mobile
phones, online banking, and email; they navigated the internet easily and
they even had their own web pages. Nonetheless, they were experiencing
being excluded by public digital platforms and services. Astrid’s father
was running his own company, until one day he was suddenly hospi-
talized. Various complications led to his staying in the hospital for two
months, where he did not have access to his own computer, ID device, or
internet. How would he be able to pay his bills? No-one else had access
to his bank account. He had always managed on his own. Astrid lived far
away, but called some of the creditors to ask for a delay in due payments;
some of them asked for a power-of-attorney document before they could
effectuate her request. A friend brought some of the paper invoices to a
physical bank, but was at first rejected, and only eventually allowed to pay
them, together with exorbitant handling fees. “This extra work was only
the first round, and the digital barrier is still there”, Astrid writes. The
telephone company, the internet service provider, the alarm company,
and the municipality all require digital self-service – representing a range
of different services with different solutions. Astrid’s second example is
her mother-in-law who had spent her working life in several Nordic coun-
tries. Now, she was struggling due to poor coordination between the vari-
ous pension systems. She had missed out on pension payments to which
she was entitled and was being taxed twice on other parts of her pension.
There were various digital portals – she logged in, uploaded documenta-
tion, and nothing happened. What should she now do? After an active
working life, she was left with less than she was entitled to (Holand 2021).

54 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 Example 2: Tove’s sister

Tove shares the story of her sister, who was hurt in an accident when she
was 14 years old. Through rehabilitation, she regained the capability to
live independently, but can be rendered digitally disempowered by new
demands. For example, Tove recalls an instance when she had ordered a
gift to be delivered to her sister’s door, but instead of cheering her up, this
instead became a reminder of all she couldn’t do. The messenger asked
for a code that had been sent in an SMS, but she can only use her phone
to call, and is not able to read an SMS. On another occasion, she called
Tove to ask what she should do after the dentist sent an invoice for an ap-
pointment which she did not attend. “I did not book any appointment,”
she says. It emerges that the yearly appointment call is only distributed
by SMS. “But they know me, they know that I cannot read an SMS,” she
complains. A personal assistant would be able to help with this, but since
she cannot manage to set up work plans and work contracts, she is not
allowed one by the municipality unless a legal guardian is appointed. “I
don’t want a guardian,” she says. It is left to Tove to find ways around
these hurdles. “As a next-of-kin in the helper role, I have met a digital
wall,” she says. It is the system that creates and exacerbates exclusion
where it does not need to be (Andersson 2022).

Reports on digital exclusion often focus on breaches in human rights or

the law, but oftentimes problems occur not because rules are broken, but
because of moving targets, changing values, and a general lack of rules and
guidelines (Ratner & Schrøder 2023). Frictions occur when a mismatch
between the practical realities of “use” and the “user” is inscribed into the
system. Both examples illustrate that people’s digital independence takes
place on a spectrum. They also illustrate that, in connection with the prac-
tical realities of “use”, people are required to draw on networks of family
and friends. Many of these digital helpers find it difficult, and valuable
time that could be spent caring for the sick person is lost on futile bureau-
cratic “work”. When helpers make an effort, bills will get paid and flowers
will end up in the hands of the right person, but we need to ask whether
there is a mismatch between the imagined digital citizen inscribed into
the systems, and the costs involved in making these systems work.

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 55
 Beyond the citizen as computer-user
To add nuance to our thinking of citizens in the digitalized welfare state,
we need to acknowledge that not all citizens are the same. So far, the sim-
ilarities within and across the Scandinavian populations have been high-
lighted, perhaps even exaggerated. Here, considerable positive value has
been attached to the citizen as an individual, tech-savvy computer-user.
This idea has become a standard, but one that does not really match most
citizens. If we wish to improve on this standard, heterogeneity must be
understood and respected. It also means that we need to consider citizens
as having the potential to be materially and socially extended – in other
words, when relatives step in, they extend the capacities of the person
who wants to complete a task.

Citizens are diverse

Many digitalization policies promote ideas of citizenship based on neolib-
eral values, in which self-responsibility, individual autonomy, and citizen
homogeneity are fundamental, unquestioned assumptions (Schou and
Hjelholt 2019). In contrast to this, experiences on the ground demon-
strate that people are not uniform. Rather they are characterized by great
variety – in whether they have sufficient access to the internet and digital
devices, whether they have or are able to acquire the required knowledge,
or whether they do not want to use digital self-service (in cases where this
is an option).
Drawing from Scandinavian insights, how can the real-life heter-
ogeneity among citizens be accommodated? In principle, it requires
that instead of a “one size fits all” approach, options are offered, which
can relate to the overall choice of using or not using a digital service.
In other words, it is about offering citizens a choice of whether they
want to communicate digitally with the public entity or not. In Nor-
way, citizens are allowed to choose if they want to communicate with
the public sector via digital or paper-based communication. However,
these preferences are set via a digital platform, the Contact Regis-

56 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
ter.4 Other options relate to the possibility of configuring the mode of
communication and interaction so that it works well for the particular
person. The Universal Design guidelines, which are obligatory for web
pages and apps intended for the general public, have ensured the obli-
gation to provide a range of technical options. Text size and contrast
can be adjusted, and alternatives to text and to images and graphical
information must be provided. Such requirements enable persons with,
for example, visual or hearing impairment to configure access and in-
teraction modes to better suit their needs.
Recognition among decision-makers of the need to accommodate
user heterogeneity varies between countries and over time. For example,
Denmark’s mandatory digital policy positions the obligatory use of dig-
ital communication as the default, and those who are not able to com-
municate digitally with the government must apply for an exemption.
This strongly conveys the message that all citizens are expected to be dig-
ital. Norway’s digital first policy has not been equally strongly enforced
(see Chapter 1). While one of the goals is that “All citizens […] that have
the ability to do so, shall communicate digitally with the public sector”
(Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation 2019: 8), they are still
offered the choice of how they want to communicate with the authori-
ties. Norway’s current overarching digitalization strategy for the public
sector, defined in 2019, states that one of the aims is to create “a simpler
everyday life for most people”. Back then, there was not much discus-
sion of those falling outside the category of “most people”, i.e. those for
whom digitalization would not be a simplification. The strategy also ac-
knowledges that “a user-centric approach is not always compatible with
improving efficiency in the public sector”, but clarifies that the users are
not its priority: “This strategy shall facilitate smarter ways of performing
tasks throughout the public sector and value creation in the business sec-
tor” (Ministry of Local Government and Modernisation 2019: 8). How-

4. Kontaktregisteret is a public register with electronic contact information for res-

idents of Norway. It contains information about residents’ language preference,
mobile number, email address, the digital mailbox a resident uses, and whether a
resident is marked as preferring digital communication, or not. It is maintained
by the Directorate of Digitalization and is compulsory for government entities
and recommended for municipalities.

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 57
ever, a notably different take on the same question emerged a few years
later. The Norwegian Government’s 2023 Action Plan to increase inclu-
sion in the digital society states: “Digitalization is a means to include
more people in society, not a goal in itself. We are responsible for deliver-
ing public services to all, also to those who cannot, or do not wish, to use
digital tools and services” (Ministry of Local Government and Regional
Development 2023: 5). We think that such a position of acknowledging
and accommodating citizen heterogeneity is the first fundamental premise
for an inclusive digital society.

Embracing life’s transitions

A person is not a static entity. As we go through life, our social relations
and our physical and cognitive abilities change. As we age, our eyesight
may deteriorate, and the skin in our hands may dry out, so that using
a touchscreen isn’t easy. Our friends are not the same, and elder family
members will at some point die. Also our legal status changes, mainly in
recognition of these natural changes in our physical and cognitive abili-
ties throughout life. As a child, we are under guardianship. In adolescence,
most of us gradually acquire more practical autonomy, take on the re-
sponsibilities that our parents or guardians used to handle, and finally
also gain legal independence. Some of us remain under guardianship our
whole lives, and some of us come under guardianship again in old age or
in other situations in which our capacities to take care of ourselves change.
Added to the changes that naturally occur in the course of a life, a
person may experience events that change their autonomy and abilities,
such as illnesses or accidents. Specific situations can cause temporary or
continuous challenges to our ability to use public digital services. As an
example, a healthy individual who cycles to work every day may become
involved in a traffic accident and suffer a concussion that prevents them
from using digital screens for weeks or months. Such a sudden change in
their ability to use digital technologies also impacts their ability to be the
“digital citizen” they used to be, and that society expects of them.
How can we include an awareness of the nature of the human life tra-
jectory into the designs of digital public services? We think the notions

58 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
of transitions and situations can be helpful. We recommend that design
processes actively seek to include use cases that involve situations that
impact people’s ability to use digital services on their own. Working with
such situational exclusion can generate design solutions that facilitate
situational help and assistance, such as temporary and task-specific dele-
gation of digital agency to a helper. Transitions should also be considered
in terms of design practices. These can happen at well-defined points in
time, e.g. when a person turns 18 years of age and becomes legally auton-
omous, or over extended periods, such as when as someone’s eyesight
gradually declines. Designers should be aware of both transition points
and transition phases.
Current digital services have to some degree acknowledged the need
for differentiation. Perhaps the most common example is that children’s
guardians are enabled to act digitally on behalf of a child through a power
of attorney. In other cases, however, the digital public services have not
accommodated these transitions; for example, the citizens’ healthcare
platform Helsenorge (Health Norway) offers a range of digital services to
citizens except children between 12 and 16 years of age. This gap is caused
by a combination of legal and technical factors. According to the health
laws, a child becomes legally autonomous (in terms of health services and
information) at 16 years of age. Before this, children are not considered
able to legally consent to the full range of services offered by the digi-
tal citizen platform, only to some of these. When a child is 12 years of
age, the parents’ access to health information is also somewhat reduced;
the child is able to access healthcare services (such as school healthcare)
on their own. In practice, the IT systems of healthcare providers (espe-
cially hospitals) are usually not able to offer such differentiated access
(i.e. holding back some information from the parents). Thus, they choose
to not give access at all until the child is 16 and is legally autonomous
according to the health laws. Moreover, few children have the digital ID
required for accessing personal health information in Helsenorge. The
BankID solution is only given to children over 13 years old and requires
parental acceptance. While the MinID solution would, in principle, also
be available for 12-year-old children, this digital ID has a lower security
level and cannot be used to access Helsenorge. In any case, very few chil-
dren get the MinID before they are 15–16 years of age, and need it in or-

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 59
der to apply to higher secondary schools through public digital portals.
Seeking to remedy this impasse, a current trial project allows young peo-
ple to use the MinID to contact the school health information system, to
ask for appointments, or to receive reminders of appointments or general
messages while work is ongoing to enable the use of additional services,
subject to parental acceptance of such use (DigiUng 2023).

Webs of relations
In our real-world lives, we are fundamentally enmeshed in a social web,
but how are these social relations replicated in the digital world? The user
stories we recounted above include family members and friends as help-
ers, but the helpers struggled to be able to help. That the digital services
are not built for helpers is a common experience among next-of-kin in
the digital world. Currently, most self-service solutions do not acknowl-
edge this enmeshing into the social web. This is evident in the fact that
service design activities tend to not include the helpers. Instead, the ma-
jority of solutions seem to assume adult, autonomous, and capable – that
is, digital – citizens. In general, there is rarely an opportunity to include
a helper in any formalized way. Thus, citizens who cannot manage to use
the services themselves may resort to enlisting family members, friends,
or neighbors to assist informally, by posing as themselves when using the
service. In other words, while the citizens’ digital ID is used to log in, it is
the helper that carries out the activities. Such informal help comes with a
number of risks for both the citizens and the helpers (Chapter 5).
The legally proper way to deal with a citizen who is not able to handle
their own affairs is to appoint a legal guardian who will get power of at-
torney and is then legally enabled to make decisions on behalf of the citi-
zen. However, the standard form of such guardianship delegations has so
far been an “all-or-nothing” decision – appointing a guardian concerns
all matters and is expected to last for the remainder of the person’s life.
While this is warranted in some cases, there is also a need for more dif-
ferentiated delegation patterns. These could be limited both temporally
(valid only for a period) and in terms of coverage (the rights delegated).
A practical example of such functionality comes from the Norwegian
citizen health information platform Helsenorge, which allows a user

60 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
(above 16 years of age and legally able to consent) to appoint another
person (above 18 years of age) whom they wish to be able to access their
digital health information in addition to themselves. This access can be
specific to certain types of information, and can later be revoked and
can be differentiated on three levels of access: the first level encompasses
core information about prescriptions, answers to lab tests, and infor-
mation from the general practitioner. The second level encompasses ac-
cess to documents from the electronic patient record (currently limited
to hospital record systems) and the log that lists the health personnel
who have accessed the patient’s records. At the third level, access also
encompasses digital dialogues with health personnel, and it is possible
for the “helper” to book appointments, request prescription renewals,
and access digital services used in treatment or follow-up, such as digital
home monitoring. This differentiated “helper access” solution is one ex-
ample of how digital public services can be designed with an awareness
that users are part of a social web. Acknowledging and accommodating
a socially extended user is a third fundamental premise for an inclusive
digital society.

Conclusion
To conclude, the partially digital citizen is a figure meant to challenge
the discourse based on digitally competent and less digital citizens. In
practice, such a binary opposition is meaningless, as it doesn’t allow for
situations in which people are connected and empowered via their social
relationships or develop and/or lose skills over the course of a lifetime.
The partially digital citizen allows us to realize that sometimes the citizen
is able to conduct the digital task – if the technology’s affordances match
with her knowledge and abilities, if the situation is favorable, and if the
required resources are available. As such, it is a notion that expands; it
draws our attention beyond the citizen as a standalone individual and
onto the situation s/he is in and the relations that are active and produc-
tive in this situation. It helps us realize that citizenship, participation,
inclusion, and exclusion are co-produced between the citizen, the service,
the situation, and the active social and material relations.

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 61
 To be a digital citizen is not a stable, once-and-for-all achieved qual-
ity. Nor is it a level of competence that has been reached, and where the
citizen will now safely remain due to their capacity to deal with systemic
changes (Chapter 7). It is rather an achievement that has been created
by lucky coincidences, by good matches, by successful alignments of re-
sources, and must continuously be recreated as technology changes and
evolves, as the tasks to be conducted and need for services change, as new
digital threats need to be understood and handled, as the eyesight dete-
riorates. In other words, digital citizenship must be reproduced and the
resources must be re-aligned again and again.
The notion, therefore, helps us ask questions, and not only about the
citizen, but about which resources are available in a given situation, and
whether they are arranged and aligned in a productive way. The “partially
digital citizen” is a notion that evokes a “risky” image – will this partial
digitality end with exclusion or inclusion? There is something at stake,
and service providers, software developers, and public entities need to see
and take this risk seriously.
The partially digital citizen is an ethnographic concept, meaning that
it has grown out of empirical research in specific times and places (de la
Cadena & Blaser 2018). It is both very concrete, referring to particular
forms of life, and abstract, in that it can work as a conceptual tool to
break open the notion of digital citizenship and acknowledge relations,
transitions, and situations. It has been cultivated through research into
digitalization in the Nordic countries, but we think it could and should
also inform organizational decision-making and strategies beyond those
countries.
In this chapter, we have described why a concept like the partially dig-
ital citizen is warranted. Our main criticism of the standard user image
afforded by digital systems and services in the public sector is that it is
asocial – it disregards the user’s social relations. When people find them-
selves in need of welfare services and benefits, they are often in a vulnera-
ble situation where they need the help of a broader range of others. Dig-
ital technologies and services in the welfare sector ought to cater for this
need by supporting the situations in which people use digital services. In
the societies that have progressed furthest in digitalizing their public ser-
vices, it is becoming evident that to have universal welfare, digital services

62 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
must differentiate, as not all citizens are able to meet the new demands
that digitalization poses. There is, therefore, a risk of public services los-
ing their universal character, as citizens encounter various barriers when
seeking them.
Digitalization processes are often clad in innovation lingo, which ap-
pears to be highly focused on the user. In many of the recent service and
technology innovation approaches, the “customer” is central. These ap-
proaches ask that innovation efforts be oriented to improving user expe-
riences. Service innovation frameworks foreground customer experience
by mapping “touchpoints” along the “customer journey”, and focus their
efforts on facilitating smooth interactions. While the user is central in
the discourse, they may not be equally central in the actual application of
these frameworks in innovation projects. Broomfield and Reutter (2022)
argue that often citizens are considered, but not engaged. The actual pro-
cesses of developing technologies and services vary in terms of the role
ascribed to the user in the design and development of the services. “Un-
conscious” design rests on assumptions that the user is autonomous and
capable; the “standard user” is an adult, healthy individual who exhib-
its a wide range of capabilities when engaging in digital interaction. The
customers are often only imagined, represented, for instance, by personas
(stereotypical users). While there are, of course, instances in which real
users are also involved in design processes, this rarely extends to “user
collectives”, meaning that proxy users, self-recruited volunteers, and un-
willing family helpers are not represented (Chapter 4).
Instead of the standard user inscribed in the fiction of a digital cit-
izen, we propose considering the partially digital citizen. This is a rela-
tional, socio-materially enriched view of the user, which includes their
relations and entanglements with other people, and with the physical
environment. It challenges dichotomies of “digital” vs. “non-digital” and
opens up our thinking to the fact that people are different in different
life situations. The citizen may be a computer-user, but they are not only
that. A citizen is a person whose life conditions are dynamic, whose capa-
bilities and capacities will change over time, and whose access to formal
and informal help vary. The digital citizen is as much defined by these
extrinsic conditions as by internal motivations, such as, for example, the
intention to succeed in completing a task digitally.

T h e part i a l ly d i g i ta l c i t i z e n 63
 In this chapter, we have advocated the need to acknowledge and ac-
commodate the heterogeneity in preferences and abilities, the transitions
that mark the course of a person’s life, and the socially enmeshed nature
of our lives. This is part of a person-centered view that attempts to nu-
ance and enrich understanding of the problem, beyond simply focusing
on vulnerable groups. This view emphasizes that we may all be at risk of
digital exclusion and that we as a society cannot delegate the responsi-
bility for welfare to the individual. Rather than assuming that everyone
has the resources and competences to become digital citizens, we need
to facilitate and uphold autonomy as a collective responsibility. This will
require a shift both for technology designers and policy-makers.

64 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 CHAPTER 4

Invisible support work

at the frontline

Previous chapters have elaborated on how digital inclusion is becoming

a new area of political interest in Scandinavia, highlighting some of the
consequences of Scandinavian digitalization politics. We have also dis-
cussed different kinds of users and helpers, such as the role of relatives
in providing digital support. This chapter addresses how professionals
in the public sector of welfare states, such as teachers and nurses, step
into the role of digital helpers when digital issues arise, and assist par-
ents and patients as part of their daily work. Such assistance may consist
of seemingly simple tasks, like helping a patient who is temporarily ill to
find a command on the smartphone; or it may require more knowledge-
able engagement, such as guiding a parent through a web portal to find
a piece of information or a service they need. The interactive features of
a web portal and the formal information given may not be easily acces-
sible to a struggling user, and a chatbot may be more confusing than
helpful.
When professionals assist pupils, guardians, patients, or relatives, it
happens in the workplace, but it is not part of the formal job descrip-
tion. We delve into these issues in order to reach a better understand-
ing of this kind of engagement, using workplace studies as our point
of departure (Luff, Hindmarsh, and Heath 2000). This type of research
typically takes workers’ everyday approaches to and mundane under-
standings of the work situation as a premise for analysis, meaning that
the focus is often on practices in which technologies are central to life

I n v i s i b l e s u pp o rt w o r k at t h e f r o n t l i n e 65
at work (Heath and Luff 2000). Beginning in the early 1970s at the Palo
Alto Research Centre, close to Silicon Valley, this branch of research was
initiated with the aim of discovering and describing how people accom-
plish their tasks at work (Symanski and Whalen 2011). It also articu-
lated a critique against studies wherein technologies were seen as deter-
mining the conditions for work. As technological determinism prevailed
in traditional work sociology, almost any political or historical condi-
tion surrounding work was being studied, while the question of how work
was carried out lacked empirical description. Taking a relational rather
than a deterministic view of technology, these studies provided insight
into how different sociotechnical setups (often in this literature referred
to as configurations) worked in practice (Grint andWoolgar 1997). The
“user” became a prominent figure in research – not only as a recipient
of technologies, but also potentially as a participant and inventor. As
workplace studies developed further at the turn of the millennium,
an interest developed in how digital (and other kinds of) technologies
could be designed to support not only individual task completion, but
also collaborative work. Studies of interface design and user experience
provided further insights into how collaboration is pursued around and
through screen work. Largely based on ethnographic research, scholars
in workplace studies, Human-Computer Interaction, and Computer
Supported Cooperative Work (CSCW) document how technologies fea-
ture in everyday organizational conduct.
One of the things that these studies illuminated is that some of the
important tasks required of organizations if they are to live up to their
targets are largely invisible. Having observed similar issues connected
to public-sector digitalization, in this chapter we zoom in on work con-
ducted by welfare professionals that we consider crucial, yet largely invis-
ible. When turning to the professional digital helper, we take a particular
interest in the invisible work pursued, and thereby explore the frontline
of a digitalized welfare system. We begin by presenting the concept, fol-
lowed by discussion of unstructured text responses from a survey of
teachers and nurses to illustrate and conceptualize the nature of this
work. Analyzing these responses, we identify a new kind of work that
grows out of their informal digital support: the invisible work of drawing
boundaries between types of tasks.

66 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 Invisible work
What counts as “work” is a matter of context; it cannot be defined with-
out taking into account the situation, the concrete tasks, and the stake-
holders. It is, therefore, relevant to investigate what is identified as work,
when, and by whom. The notion of “invisible work” (Star and Strauss
1999) describes a range of activities accompanying digitalization pro-
cesses, and underlines how digital technology renders certain tasks and
certain actors visible in various work contexts, while others remain hid-
den from view, e.g. preparing and organizing information or other (digi-
tal) materials to make them processable for a particular examination, de-
cision, or treatment. Information is central in almost all work situations,
but we do not always recognize all of the labor associated with produc-
ing, organizing, retrieving, or curating this information. These mundane
and taken-for-granted work tasks risk being overlooked when the work
process is digitalized.
Let us take a few examples. A new information system at a hospital
ward can produce unnoticed work such as spending time scrolling and
searching for relevant information to be able to engage in recurrent, or-
dinary, daily activity, such as reporting to the next shift (Winman and
Rystedt 2011). In a context where activities are expected to run smoothly
but are not supported by systems and applications, constant adjustment
of and attention to invisible “care work” are required. This care not only
relates to humans, but also technology – from adjusting a new system
update to your workflow, to checking on a colleague who needs support
to complete a task.
Welfare work at the frontline entails a range of tasks that require
professional judgment, such as asking questions, making observations,
conducting examinations, writing notes, discussing test results, and re-
porting on treatments. Such tasks may seem very similar at the descrip-
tive level, but what this work entails in practice is guided by very differ-
ent activities that enact different forms of professional knowing – which
become relevant at different stages of processing a case – coupled with
specific institutional accountabilities. As such, it may seem like a good
idea to develop a common assessment framework to share information
and streamline seemingly similar tasks. In the UK, this idea of a common

I n v i s i b l e s u pp o rt w o r k at t h e f r o n t l i n e 67
framework to assess children at risk triggered an approach among the
most experienced professionals to protect the quality of ongoing assess-
ment work by strategically deciding whether, when, and how to enter in-
formation (White, Hall, and Peckover 2009).
When scholars speak about invisible work, they mean work that
“fades into the woodwork” of an organization, to use the wording of
Timmermans, Bowker, and Star (1998). Some kinds of invisible work sit
“between” other tasks, and cannot easily be measured or accounted for,
while other kinds of invisible work are deliberately kept invisible. It is
helpful to distinguish between the following reasons for work becoming
invisible:

— Work may go unnoticed; in other words, it is not acknowledged as work

in the context, but is done to keep visible work running (updating
systems, searching for information).
— Work may be neglected; it may be seen as work, but not formally rec-
ognized as such, which typically gives rise to negotiations over whose
work it is (fixing machines, supporting colleagues).
— Work may also be hidden; to safeguard professional integrity or be-
cause it involves unresolved tasks and has therefore been set aside
(this tends to happen when there are means-end conflicts in pub-
lic-sector policy).

When we reflect on this, we notice the social dynamics involved, e.g. with
respect to the distribution of accountability. The intertwined features of
invisible work, the role of the institutional context, and the actors in-
volved carry a shared responsibility for the work. But who will be held
accountable for not doing it? A professional at the frontline of the digital-
ized public sector can (and often will) be held accountable for not step-
ping in if a task has been assigned to a client, parent, patient, the public,
or a machine and not completed, since in the end the responsibility re-
mains with the professional.
Making digital responsibilities visible would make it possible for the
work to be acknowledged by others, with all the benefits that could ac-
crue from formal recognition and legitimacy being conferred by associa-
tions of professionals. The boundaries of the work and the responsibili-

68 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
ties involved can be made explicit, which enables the knowledge domain
to be developed, and new challenges to be faced, leading to new rights
and obligations becoming regulated features of the professionals’ work.
There are, however, multiple, complex dilemmas involved in render-
ing work visible; visibility can carry with it the reification of tasks that
should not be reified, or even lead to surveillance (Suchman 1995). The
dilemmas of making work visible are becoming more salient due to the
increased possibilities of digital monitoring by management (e.g. algo-
rithmic management; see Justesen and Plesner 2024) and, by extension,
by the authorities: real-time surveillance of institutional performance,
traced through the layers of digital activity on platforms. Visibility may,
in addition, create difficulties and dilemmas when welfare professionals
encounter citizens who are seeking advice in the grey zone at the bound-
ary of formal responsibilities and informal help.
The more complex and intricate an organization’s digitalization pro-
cesses, the more work is needed to communicate, adjust, fine-tune, and mon-
itor their effects – that is, to repair what used to be taken for granted as a
basis for doing the work in the first place. Strauss (1988) called this in
situ fixing articulation work, which is the kind of work that is necessary
to get things back on track when unforeseen things happen and actions
need to be modified to manage a situation. Such work is called for when
unforeseen contingencies emerge and sensitize the professional to the
consequences of the situation. As professionals in the public sector “in-
teract directly with citizens in the course of their jobs” and “have sub-
stantial discretion in the execution of their work” (Lipsky 1980: 3), they
may step in to support digital inclusion. It is here the professionals in
public services become salient in maintaining the welfare contract, i.e.
the rights and obligations that constitute the relation between the state
and its citizens.

Professional helpers
The examples in this chapter come from a survey we conducted in 2023
across the Scandinavian countries as part of a quantitative investigation
of informal digital support by frontline personnel (teachers in Sweden,

I n v i s i b l e s u pp o rt w o r k at t h e f r o n t l i n e 69
nurses in Norway, and citizen service center employees in Denmark). The
survey offered the opportunity for respondents to add open-ended com-
ments translated into English. Below, we present responses contributed
by Swedish teachers on the informal digital support they provide,1 and by
nurses working in the primary health sector and employed at the munic-
ipal level2 in Norway. We have selected excerpts that talk about the work
teachers must do to be able to communicate with parents, and the work
nurses must do to offer home-care services to patients digitally.
An element that distinguishes teachers’ public service work from that
of other professions is the frequent and long-term relationship that a
teacher has with each student, based on the support provided for their
learning, development, and well-being, and the obligation to communi-
cate with parents about their children’s activities and progress. What is
particular about the nurses is that they meet their patients in the location
where the latter live their everyday lives, in their own homes or in nursing
homes – they are not obliged to communicate with patients and their rela-
tives digitally, unlike teachers with students and parents. This differenti-
ates their position as helpers from that of schoolteachers who communi-
cate with parents and children mainly in a mediated form, or by meeting
them at the school. However, despite these (and many other) differences,
there are similarities in the invisible digital support work they perform.

Securing school-home communication

According to the Swedish Education Act (2010), schools are obliged to
collaborate and communicate with a child’s guardians, but how this is
organized with respect to digital means is locally decided within each
school. While a major part of teachers’ communicative work has moved
onto digital school platforms, some schools still lack them, while others
are not using them (Swedish National Agency of Education 2022). At the
same time, teachers have reported stress and worsened work conditions
due to malfunctioning platforms (Swedish Teacher Union, 2019). As is

1. Conducted in August 2023, based on a random selection of teachers n=830.

2. Conducted in May 2023, with NSF, >3000 respondents.

70 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
the case in many welfare agencies, teachers keep their own notes, and
many responded that they have minimized their work on the platforms
and only do what is obligatory. To be able to reach out to parents at all
times, however, schools work with alternative and compensatory infor-
mation channels to ensure that parents can stay involved. And since rela-
tionships between teachers and parents must be maintained throughout
a longer time period, they also must be nurtured when digital technol-
ogies change the premises for communication (Thompson et al. 2015;
Hedin and Frank 2022). This type of situation calls for extended work
practices that also count as invisible work, as discussed below.
As in many other public digital services, school platforms have been
launched to support and follow up a range of obligatory tasks for teachers
and school management, including the provision of information about
individual students’ progress, achievements, attendance, grades, and so
on, all which should be available and be communicated to parents. Par-
ents are also expected to provide information on the platform, respond-
ing to surveys before follow-up meetings and entering information on
student absences or time schedules. Digitalization at the frontline of
education can be challenging in many ways. One example of this relates
to the demands raised by tech-savvy parents. In 2021 in Stockholm, a
group of parents built their own open-source version of the Skolplattform
(school platform), which they called open school platform. It was basi-
cally an API running an app on top of the official school platform, which
improved its basic functionality for parents. However, as the municipal-
ity stated during the public controversy that followed the release of the
app, “it has to work for teachers and students as well” (Burgess 2021).
At the frontline, a more common challenge is that teachers will face
the opposite situation – parents who are not users of digital technolo-
gies – and it is their accounts of this challenge that we focus on here.
As we shall see, teachers tend to step in to establish and maintain com-
munication on school activities with parents who are – for a variety of
reasons – not coping with the requirements of digital communication.
Here, teachers comment on the problems that have emerged in relation
to these parents during intensified digitalization, the new kinds of work
they do when helping families and parents with digital technologies, and
how they position themselves as professionals in relation to such work.

I n v i s i b l e s u pp o rt w o r k at t h e f r o n t l i n e 71
 Teachers, parents and platforms

Teachers step in to share all kinds of information with guardians via

the platforms, e.g. regarding school activities, the learning progress of
their children, and school attendance. What this means is that teachers
often become an extra “layer” on top of the communication device of-
fered. The work they do is comparable to the work done by the previously
mentioned app that some parents developed as an addition to the school
platform, in the sense that they filter the bulk of available information to
ease access to the tasks parents must perform.
Communicating with parents about their children is an obligation
for teachers, but articulating the less than perfect functionalities of the
platform application to the intended user is not. While this articula-
tion work is not formally described as their responsibility, in practice
it becomes another task; indeed, most of the work teachers say they do
to help parents relates to the technical functionality of the school plat-
form. They describe this as closing the gap between platform features
and the capabilities of guardians to become involved in the schooling
of their child. As one teacher puts it: “Guardians don’t read instructi-
ons or seek solutions via the municipality’s website, instead they just say
that it doesn’t work and ask me as a preschool teacher to solve it. For
example, filling out questionnaires via the municipality’s digital plat-
form before parent-teacher conferences or submitting the child’s stay
times digitally.”
In this excerpt, the respondent mentions two kinds of tasks: seeking
out and filling in information. The filling in of information pertains to
the documentation of children’s school attendance, which is important
for the teachers and required by the school. It may seem less important to
the guardians, but it is, nevertheless, a task they are obliged to undertake.
As one teacher explains, “The help is mainly related to our documenta-
tion and information tools and the app we use.” Guardians and teachers
all use the same systems, yet it is not always simple for guardians to ma-
ster them. As one teacher writes: “[They] need help with digital platforms,
how to get a login. How to make the system work on their mobiles. We
therefore must explain the system to them.” The teacher considers that
the issue is one of translation: “[It’s a] language problem. They are not

72 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
familiar with the technology. I also give them all important information
orally and on paper, with clear short texts and pictures that I personally
show and hand over.”
Explaining the system’s functionality, or working around it by dupli-
cating information in print or orally, however, is not the only kind of
translation work teachers must conduct. Some guardians are illiterate.
According to one teacher: “they need to have all information read aloud
from the learning platform. [They] need help getting into the learning
platform. [They] need help with how to report their child sick. They don’t
have anyone else to help them, so that task falls to us in preschool.”
These examples display a mismatch between the expected actions of
an intended user and the platform. It is in this situation, the teachers step
in to secure a digital fit, offering help in both accessing the platform (e.g.
problems with eIDs) and making use of the digital service itself (e.g. mak-
ing school information available and understandable at the right time
and place to include parents in their child’s schooling).
Ironically, this is precisely what platform providers argue will not be
necessary when using their systems. It seems the providers have devel-
oped systems that “give off” information, and when one has the will and
the skill, the systems can perform very well. But what the providers have
not taken into account with regard to the school context is the extent
to which communication concerning the education of children requires
consideration of the situations of a diverse group of “others”. Since
school-home communication is obligatory, the kind of work teachers
provide not only implies data entry of behalf of guardians; sometimes it
also includes instructions and material in modalities other than writing
to guide guardians. Most platforms only present information in Swedish
(although some have English as an option), but this does not recognize
the variety in guardians’ native languages, which then places additional
tasks on teachers.
Another task relates to understanding the educational system and
what it expects from a guardian more broadly, and then transforming
these expectations into actions on a digital platform. This amounts to
much more than being capable of retrieving and understanding instruc-
tions. For the teachers helping, this again requires translation skills that
extend beyond what is literally written. Indeed, teachers preempt the sit-

I n v i s i b l e s u pp o rt w o r k at t h e f r o n t l i n e 73
uation in which guardians are not informed, as the implications of being
cut off from communication stretch far beyond the immediate situation,
as the following excerpt from a teacher indicates: “entering their schedule
or times for their child in our system is a job that then falls to the staff,
even though we are not given extra time for this, which results in less
time with the children. The digital tools are not available with the [same
frames of reference] as a large part of our relatively recently arrived im-
migrant guardians; this means exclusion from their children’s preschool
and schooling, as they do not have the opportunity to access the same in-
formation about important events and knowledge about their children’s
everyday life as other guardians.”
The compensatory work teachers perform on behalf of the guardians,
as described here, is aimed at securing the child’s future, and is indicative
of a teacher who is sensitized to the political and democratic implications
of not stepping in with digital support. Here, we see how digitalization
at the frontline involves helping children to become citizens, but also in-
directly involves helping parents to understand and navigate the educa-
tional system and Swedish society more broadly.

Connecting to third actors

Teachers also engage in orienting and connecting guardians to actors
other than those strictly related to the school: in other words, “third ac-
tors”, or people and institutions with whom, as citizens, the guardians
must communicate. The invisible work teachers do to facilitate commu-
nication with other authorities requires hands-on involvement, as well
as cultural translations of how Swedish society works. According to one
teacher: “sometimes it’s about the Swedish Social Insurance Agency or
translating information from the authority that guardians have received
by email or similar. I try to refer to the right person or authority. Provide
written information about any phone number, name, etc. Sometimes
I help with booking a doctor’s appointment.” One teacher mentioned
stepping in to help in a vulnerable situation, one that could put a family
at risk and which the teacher had to hide: “the most unusual thing I have
done was to help an undocumented family where the child was injured.
They had received an incorrect bill of several thousand from the hospital.

74 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
Otherwise, I usually do it for our sake, making the absence report visible,
etc.”
According to teachers, the digital issues that require teachers to help
guardians go unnoticed by both management and policy-makers in the
education sector. Some of the work is deliberately hidden from view, such
as the help described in the quote above, but most becomes invisible be-
cause it is simply considered necessary and almost neglected as work,
such as that undertaken to compensate for malfunctioning platforms,
for example. Teachers consider themselves to be doing work for actual
people, rather than for imagined users on a platform. Since the technical
support tasks are needed for the teachers to carry out the work they con-
sider core to their job, including communication with guardians, they
do not regard the support itself as work. When we asked teachers about
how much of the help offered they would categorize as part of their job,
the answers ranged from “all help is part of my work” (30%), “more than
half” (12%), “around half” (11%), and “less than half” (25%), to “none
of the help offered is part of my work” (22%). Since this kind of work
is unacknowledged by management at the municipal level, there are no
resources or time allocated to support teachers who need to step in to
secure home-school communication. In the survey, nearly half of the
teachers reported that they abstain from helping due to lack of time or
lack of competence.
The dilemma here is the following: if the teachers do not do the work
of supporting guardians in the digital tasks assigned to them, the teach-
ers themselves will experience the fallout. Missing attendance reports sig-
nal to municipal-level management that communication with parents
is not being properly handled. Potentially worse, if whole families drop
out or if there is a lack of care for people who do not have Swedish as
their first language, this could make the school principal and the teach-
ers look bad in the community, and they could be held accountable for
what would be deemed misconduct by the local authorities. With these
scenarios in mind, it is intriguing to consider the amount of invisible
work that is brought about by digitalization, who is doing it, how it is
made visible (or not), and why. For the purpose of this book, it is also
important to consider what the consequences would be if teachers did
not attend to the digital support of guardians who do not fit the image of

I n v i s i b l e s u pp o rt w o r k at t h e f r o n t l i n e 75
the inscribed user figure. As we saw, the responsibility to care for this mis-
match is assumed to fall on the shoulders of the professionals. Although
in many instances such support is not part of their job as teachers, if this
task is neglected, the consequences are grave for both the teacher and the
guardian – and ultimately, of course, the children. In the next section, for
the sake of comparison, we turn to the invisible digital support carried
out by nurses.

Digital support in municipal homecare

The nurses who participated in our study work in the primary healthcare
sector. Many work in nursing homes or in homecare services, meaning
that they meet their patients in the location where the latter live their
everyday lives. Because they work in patients’ home environments, the
nurses face many different tasks connected with the use of digital tech-
nologies. Those who answered our survey reported encountering a broad
range of help requests and needs, some of which are related to health-spe-
cific issues and digital health services. For instance, the patients would
often request help with accessing digital messages from the health ser-
vices, such as appointment notifications, sent to their “mailboxes” at the
citizen health portal (Helsenorge); to read them, one needs to log in with
the eID (BankID). As one nurse explains: “they receive messages from
Helsenorge, but some of the elderly don’t have BankID, and then we
need to try to contact the hospital via phone. The elderly become anxious
when they get these messages. They don’t know what to do or what is the
right thing to do when they can’t access [them].” In addition to health-
care-related topics, the nurses also encounter a wide variety of other is-
sues pertaining to technical devices present in the home and the need to
communicate with welfare service providers, relatives, and others. This
is demonstrated in the survey responses from nurses: “there are people
with dementia who turn off their phone and need help to enter the PIN
code and PUK code which they don’t remember”. Much of it is about
logging into bank services, NAV, and other agencies: “often the patients
can no longer deal with their smartphones; they need help with advanced
hearing aids, help to find telephone numbers”. Another says: “we help the

76 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
patients to call their next-of-kin, send messages, open messages, connect
to the wi-fi, change TV channels, fix the TV setup, use the remote control,
adjust the volume. We help with using private mobile phones, replying to
calls, calling the family, writing text messages, charging the phone, and
explaining the content of a message from the hospitals or the doctor.”
And: “we help with assistive technologies with digital components, alarm
systems with digital components, doors with digital components. [We
help them] get into internet banking, remember passwords, get a new
password if the old doesn’t work anymore, read messages, delete mes-
sages, turn on the mobile phone, turn on the TV.”
The private and the public get mixed up in people’s homes through
the personal devices which are needed so patients can maintain contact
with the healthcare services. In fact, digital public services cannot be
accessed without privately owned devices such as phones, which run on
privately administered wi-fi, and may be as much of a challenge as the
digital public services themselves. While this mixture is not a problem
in and by itself, when fully functioning devices are a prerequisite for
accessing digital public services, keeping them charged and updated
becomes nursing work if the patient does not have relatives who do it.
As such, these nurses, whose core work is primary care, encounter pa-
tients who not only struggle with the services provided by other public
entities, such as secondary healthcare or specialist services that include
interpreting clinical data, but also with the devices used to access such
services and information. This breadth of communication responsi-
bility can be challenging. As one of the nurses reports: “I don’t have
knowledge about all the private equipment they have. I am a nurse, not
a data expert.”
This wide range of help requests raises the question of where the
boundaries for help should be drawn. When we asked the nurses how
much of the help they offered could be considered to be part of their job,
the answers ranged from “all help is part of my work” (25%), “more than
half” (11%), “around half” (10%), and “less than half” (34%), to “none of
the help offered is part of my work” (20%). A major reason they gave for
refusing to help was that it would take time from other important tasks.
Time was also the factor that received the highest score when we asked
about any worries or concerns they have in relation to the help they offer

I n v i s i b l e s u pp o rt w o r k at t h e f r o n t l i n e 77
– 47% of the respondents found the time spent on digital help to be an is-
sue. The reasons for agreeing to help despite this were framed as follows:

“They don’t have anyone else to ask.”

“They are unable to manage themselves.”

“They are often alone and they have been used to receiving a lot of
help from the family.”

“In particular, we help them with NAV; they have an outrageously dif-
ficult schema regime.”

“NAV isn’t any good at helping their users.”

Thus, the nurses recognized that they might have to do things that rel-
atives could have helped with. Consequently, 43% of the respondents
reported concerns about being exposed to personal information that
they should not have seen, and 39% were worried that they were stepping
outside the boundaries of what they are allowed to do. In addition, 30%
were worried that their actions could have consequences for the person
helped. Only 19% reported that they did not have any concerns.

Drawing boundaries
– a new kind of invisible digi-work?
In their article on “invisible digi-work”, Lise Justesen and Ursula Plesner
seek to expand “our understanding of digitalized organizations and dig-
ital work” by identifying new types of invisible work – connecting, com-
pensating, and cleaning (2024) – which emerge from the cases that they
describe in the article. While the invisible digi-work is specific to those
cases, we nevertheless find that the work that they label “connecting”,
defined as “concrete activities that involve the maintenance and repair of
digitally afforded connections” (ibid., p. 10), characterizes much of what
we have presented above. In connecting work, people must “prepare,

78 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
charge, and sync their devices and often troubleshoot when connections
are not functioning” (ibid., p. 11). The focus is that nurses and teachers
do this work for others and only indirectly for the organization, render-
ing it connecting work that is invisible for some, and less so for others.
In the case of nurses and teachers, connecting work is largely invisible to
managers and authorities more generally, because the employees them-
selves devalue it. As Justesen and Plesner argue, “While recurring and
time-consuming, these tasks are not considered to be “real” work by the
independent professionals who silently bear the full cost of the effort it
takes to maintain the connectivity upon which their paid activities de-
pend. This part of their job is thus largely marginalized by themselves, as
they do not “see” it as real work.” (ibid.).
In addition to the work of connecting (charging phones, getting eIDs
to work, reading and writing messages, and so on) we find in our material
a novel kind of invisible work: the work of drawing boundaries between
what should be and what should not be part of one’s work, which involves
disconnecting from tasks that one does not consider to be one’s responsi-
bility. This work is invisible in two ways – first in the sense that it is sorting
work that distinguishes between whether or not one chooses to offer help;
and, secondly, in that it involves sense-making about why one chooses one
option or the other. This work of drawing boundaries was drawn to our at-
tention because the teachers offered a range of reasons and justifications
for their choices. Some saw such assistance as integral to their job, while
others defined it as outside their professional boundaries; some took on
the work temporarily, while others saw it as a long-term commitment. Ac-
cording to one teacher: “since it is in the preschool’s interest that guardi-
ans can handle, e.g. our learning platform, and it is extremely important
for the children that their families can take part in documentation and
information that is sent out via this platform on equal terms, I believe
that it is absolutely part of my job to help guardians as best I can with this.
If I can’t help, I'll refer you to the right person.” And furthermore: “it has
become a natural part of overtime work because more and more is done
digitally and we have to teach the guardians how to do it.”
Other teachers questioned whether it should be part of the job, or
observed that helping was not their job. Some differentiated between var-
ious types of help:

I n v i s i b l e s u pp o rt w o r k at t h e f r o n t l i n e 79
 “Collaborating with guardians is part of the curriculum and we will
try to help as much as possible or refer them to where they get help.
But then I have experienced that the preschool is becoming more of a
service profession where we have to please the ‘customer’ [guardians]
in light of certain decisions from the municipality.”

“When launching new routines, it is part of my work to inform and

demonstrate [how they work], at parents’ meetings, for example. I do
not consider having to remind, show, or support guardians several
times a week in their task of entering their child’s schedule, to be my
task at all (because we do not get any time to perform that task).”

“Online registration of schedules, so our managers can see exactly

how many children are present at all times of the day, is not part of
my job. [It’s] just to save money.”

“It’s not up to me as a preschool teacher to help the parents with IT

issues.”

Among the teachers who choose to help, some emphasized the moral ob-
ligation to the child, and sometimes the need to accommodate parents.
These different ways of drawing boundaries around a professional teach-
er’s job display why invisible work is complex to the core.

Conclusion
Particular situations induce an urgency that calls for professionals to
step beyond their ordinary work. When a patient receives a notification
about a hospital appointment, but cannot see when and where this is,
a nurse may decide to step in and sort it out. Similarly, a teacher may
learn about guardians not receiving necessary information through the
platform and decide to contact them by other means. These actions are
driven by a wish to preempt potential problems foreseen by the profes-
sional. If nothing is done, the patient will not arrive at the hospital for the
appointment, or the child will not be properly equipped for the school

80 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
trip. It is seen as better to do the extra work in order to avoid a possible
future problem.
This work to preempt problem situations ensures that the system con-
tinues to work without major complications; in taking on the extra work,
the professionals prevent failures and breakdowns, meaning that on the
outside things seem to run smoothly. However, this work of preempting
problems also contributes to making the consequences of digitalization
less visible. The extra work then contributes to hiding fundamental mis-
matches between “users”, including their helpers, and a task or service
provision inscribed into the system (Chapter 3), and may prevent these
issues being fixed (Chapter 7).
Another challenge is when the problem and need for help are recog-
nized, but there is no agreement on whose work it should be. When the
responsibility for work is not assigned to anyone, it cannot be predicted
whether the problem will be solved, or who will be left with the task –
which will often fall to those in closest proximity to the patient or parent
in question.
We have argued that both nurses and teachers are called upon to help
with a host of issues pertaining to digitalization. Variation occurs, how-
ever, in whether this help is acknowledged and recognized as work (by
them and others), or is perceived as just something that “has to be done”
that one should not make a fuss about. Interestingly, in the case of teach-
ers, part of the invisible work consists of reflection on whether such labor
is their responsibility. We did not find discussion of this in the literature
and conclude that drawing boundaries is a new type of invisible work
that managers and decision-makers should be careful does not become
a task in itself. This could be avoided if there were guidelines as to what
constitutes legitimate digital support and what does not. If things are
not done, accountability falls upon the welfare professionals, making
them more willing to undertake tasks that enable smooth operations,
even when they are technically not part of their job. Therefore, guidelines
cannot stand alone, but must be backed by support structures for tasks
that are difficult to formalize or tend to fall between areas of responsibil-
ity. Welfare state organizations could commit to giving more attention
to the various kinds of informal help offered to citizens. Insights into the
nature of invisible work and how others deal with it could be added to

I n v i s i b l e s u pp o rt w o r k at t h e f r o n t l i n e 81
discussions on the distribution of responsibility for taking on underval-
ued and unaccounted for work. Our survey disclosed that while informal
digital support can be a source of frustration for workers on the frontline
of the welfare state, there is little discussion about these matters in the
workplaces.

82 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 CHAPTER 5

Digital support
by non-professionals
and volunteers

As we have argued in previous chapters, digital citizenship is an achieve-

ment that requires alignment across several elements and a good deal
of work. Being digitally included – or excluded – happens as an effect of
multiple relationships that span the welfare system, including those with
humans, technologies, and institutions. We have developed the concept
of the partially digital citizen to remind us that no one becomes a digital
citizen in isolation.
Several factors are crucial, including the situation, the match between
an individual’s skills and the technological requirements, access to re-
sources, and how power and authority is distributed in specific contexts.
In other words, a digital citizen is “co-produced” by several contribut-
ing factors and conditions. The notion of co-production, as understood
by Science and Technology Studies (see, e.g. Jasanoff 2004) invites us to
attend to the interplay between an individual’s circumstances and the
alignment (or misalignment) of their abilities and digital skills with the
technology’s functionality and different requirements.
Now let us consider a few examples illustrating the co-production of
digital citizenship:

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 83
 Jonna logs in to a digital self-service, using her eID. She got the eID
many years ago, because her bank trusts her. Her mobile phone is
quite new and still has enough charge, despite it being toward the end
of the day. Although the sun is shining brightly, she steps into her
shaded office, allowing her to see her screen clearly.

Andreas has struggled to order bus tickets via the app – it is so diffi-
cult to read the text and numbers. But with the last app upgrade, the
service provider finally implemented the Web Content Accessibility
Guidelines (WCAG) guidelines, and now the visual contrast on the
web page is high enough for him to be able to see where to click.

Karl does not feel confident about logging into digital self-service
on his own. He has a daughter who lives not too far away, and she
comes round for “digital coffee”. After coffee and a chat, they both
sit down in front of the computer. She sits next to him and guides
him, saying, “You just click there, on the right side.” She curbs her
impatience, reminding herself that successfully completing this task
could significantly impact her dad’s confidence in managing everyday
digital tasks.

For the past week, Louise has been unable to use the digital service, and
has instead received numerous error messages. She visits an IT café,
where a volunteer helps her upgrade her phone, resolving the issues.

All these people rely on multiple elements to function as “digital citi-

zens”. Sometimes these elements do not align properly, leading to break-
downs or issues when the necessary support systems are lacking. In those
cases, the presence of a helper can be what changes the situation from an
unsuccessful attempt to use digital services to a successful one.

The digital helper

The need for digital helpers has emerged because the digitalization of
public services has redistributed work and responsibility from the public

84 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
domain to citizens. As we have discussed in earlier chapters, this redis-
tribution and delegation of welfare work does not always align with the
resources that people have at their disposal. Many citizens can only access
digital public services with assistance from others. Often, children must
help parents who are not familiar with digital technology, or a friend
or neighbor is called upon for assistance. Sometimes, public employ-
ees must go the extra mile to ensure their clients can manage effectively
– and this shift has an impact on their work situation, as described in
the previous chapter. This chapter focuses on the rest – the people who
become helpers through their social networks, and volunteers who offer
digital help either in designated IT-cafés or because they are enlisted as
volunteers in other ways.
Many of us – 43% of the Norwegian population, according to a recent
study (Forbrukerrådet, 2023) – experience being called upon to help oth-
ers with digital tasks. Supporting this, at a conference on Private Com-
panies and Citizen-Centered Digitalization at the Technical University
of Denmark in the fall of 2023, the moderator conducted a quick survey
among the participants, asking them to raise a hand if they had ever been
called upon to provide digital help. Almost all of the 50 people in the
room raised their hands. In addition to assistance offered on a private
basis, voluntary organizations also help out digitally, sometimes as part
of other core tasks, such as home visits to the lonely, or in combination
with social inclusion-oriented activities. These organizations may also of-
fer dedicated digital support programs, such as skills training or drop-in
support services, and may receive financial support from the government
to do so.
While digital help is very widespread in practice, it also tends to be
relegated to the informal domain, and is therefore often invisible. Nor
has the topic of informal digital help received much policy or research
attention. Indeed, we do not yet know enough about the areas in which
citizens need help, whether they can access it, how it is delivered, the ma-
terial, emotional, and other kinds of constraints under which help is of-
fered, and how helping is perceived by both the helped and the helpers.
In the following, we present our concerns relating to these issues, starting
with the citizens who ask for help.

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 85
 Asking for help
Most people want to live their lives without having to ask for help. When
public services introduce digital access, this new requirement becomes
a barrier for some, rendering them incapable of dealing with tasks they
could previously manage. Some citizens report strongly negative feelings
of alienation and of not belonging to society anymore. For some peo-
ple, the temptation to ignore or disregard digital requirements is strong,
leading to the choice of avoidance. However, with few, usually cumber-
some alternatives available, this often results in citizens missing out on
public services that they need and to which they are entitled. The Danish
Institute for Human Rights highlights that digital exclusion represents
a violation of basic human rights in a society where welfare is universally
guaranteed by law (IMR, 2023).
While many citizens might prefer not to have to deal with accessing
services digitally, in the context of digital inclusion as a new wave in the
strategic-political arena, the choice is not theirs to make (Chapter 1).
Some deal with it because they feel forced to do so, perceiving that it is
vital in order to continue to live the life they wish. Yet, while many turn
to family and friends for help, some may not have anyone in their social
networks to ask. This can lead to a loss of services or benefits, or it may
shift the burden of assistance to the public sector.
For some, mustering the courage to ask for – and accept – help can be
a significant hurdle to overcome, one that requires admitting a lack of
knowledge or skill to someone else, which can be challenging and humil-
iating. Midtgård reflects on an episode in which they were called upon by
a neighbor to assist with a tax-related digital request. The neighbor could
not figure out how to resolve an error message:

“I am a grown man,” he says suddenly while we stand there in front

of the PC on his dining table. “I know this. I am a man who knows
this. I don’t know why I cannot do it.” I am unsure whether it is the
frustration of not managing it himself, or the shame he experiences
having to ask his neighbor to help with something he feels he should
be able to do himself, which is the most pressing feeling. What is

86 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 obvious is his experience of no longer being able to live up to his
self-image.
(Midtgård, et al. 2021, p. 242)

Exposing oneself as someone who is in need of help requires a willingness

to take up a position of vulnerability. Additionally, asking for help usu-
ally means that personal information, often relating to sensitive issues
such as physical or mental health or financial matters, will also be ex-
posed to the helper. The helper must be trusted not only to refrain from
sharing personal information inappropriately in social settings, but also
not to use the information for illegal activities such as identity theft or
financial fraud.
In a study of the digital help service offered by a Danish library, Car-
reras and Winthereik (2022) found that the helpers worried that the
people seeking digital help were vulnerable to data theft and financial
fraud. Even though helpers remind such people to keep their login
information private, they found that in emergencies or moments of
desperation, people were willing to disclose it. Many also maintained a
physical notebook containing a collection of their login information –
to Gmail, Facebook, NemID, and their online bank, for example. This
practice not only exposed them to potential data breaches, but also
highlighted their struggle to remember a lot of usernames and access
codes (ibid., p. 10).
Having to ask for help can also involve the recognition of the burden
one’s request places on other people. This sense of being a burden can
destroy a person’s health and state of mind:

I’m suffering from PTSD and can’t get out of the house due to my
anxiety. After banks started requiring a passport to give their custom-
ers BankID and many online stores started requiring BankID to shop,
my life has become a nightmare! Not being able to buy the essential
things I need anymore makes me feel helpless, small, and worthless,
and I wish I died so I wouldn’t bother people any longer.
(Forbrukerrådet, 2023, p. 3)

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 87
When help is offered as a public service, it may be easier to request it
without such feelings, but in situations where formal help is not avail-
able, people must rely on their own social networks. Needing help with
the digital world introduces relations of dependency. When next-of-kin
or other informal helpers take on the responsibility to help their family
members with public digital self-services, issues arise connected with im-
balanced power relations, due process and rule of law, data use and data
protection, vulnerability, and personal autonomy (Carreras and Win-
thereik 2022, p. 15).

Offering help
Offering help, much like asking for it, is not always straightforward. It
is not merely a feel-good activity; it demands time and effort from the
helper. Within family dynamics, the time dedicated to solving digital
issues may take time from just being together as family. As a Danish
woman who calls herself a “multi-helper”, because she assists multiple
relatives, recounts:

My mom is doing a lot herself in the digital, yet I am not able to count
how many times I have had to help her with updates, for the bank,
mail, gym, membership in associations, apps for registration with
senior activities – a bit ironic in itself – updates of MobilePay, etc. The
platforms and services that she is used to have changed their look, or
new codes are required. Such things create helplessness on her side
and it creates frustrations in the family, when we again meet, not for
a coffee, not for socializing, but because an important app needs up-
dating or because the internet bank is down. […] My mother is tired
of being burdensome and I lie when I say she’s not bothering me, and
she knows I’m lying. My mum is 81 and I’m tired to the bones of all
the hours that the digital helping has stolen from us. It is sad, it is
really sad to think about. This doesn’t occur in a nice quiet way, I am
ready to throw the computer out of the window in frustration. So
everyone is unhappy. And here we are talking about people who used
to manage themselves.

88 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
Taking on and accepting the role of digital helper also means being ex-
posed to the vulnerability of others, which can be an uncomfortable po-
sition. Midtgård (et al. 2021, p. 243) continues: “The night my neighbor
knocked on my door, I got access to personal information about his pri-
vate economic matters. Highly involuntary for both parties. I also got
access to the pin code for his access device.” The helper is required to
navigate this uncomfortable inter-personal situation, as well as the legal
implications of having access to personal information. This is a challenge
on which we expand in the next section.
Sometimes, the relatives or neighbors who are approached as help-
ers may also struggle with understanding what is required, why an error
message pops up, or what to do to resolve a problem. While navigating
the digital domain for oneself is challenging, doing it for or with others
can be a real pain. Help may be needed not only with the digital interface
and how to navigate it, but also with substantive matters regarding the
public service. Questions that earlier could be asked directly of a pub-
lic servant in a face-to-face conversation now need to be tackled without
help and bureaucratic competence. These might include inquiries about
entitlement to certain services, the correct forms to fill out and submit,
and clarification on the information requested in those forms. Ideally,
such guidance should be provided by public-sector employees, but ac-
cess to face-to-face meetings has in many instances been reduced, and
is sometimes not an option. Consequently, citizens may seek assistance
from helpers on these matters as well.
In the Danish library study, we found that there was a distinction
between “advising” (vejlede) and “counselling” (rådgive). The employ-
ees had been clearly instructed to guide, but not to counsel. Counsel-
ling would require formal insight into the law, and since they are not
case-workers, they must not provide formal advice. This falls outside
their role as “advisors in digital self-services” and they should refer the
citizen to the relevant public entity (Carreras and Winthereik 2022, p.
10). This distinction between guiding and counselling may in practice
be less clear in a concrete case, as “helping” is a softer category that cov-
ers a bit of both – it is something people offer in response to the needs
of someone sitting in front of them. Discerning the difference between
advising, counselling, and help by the voluntary, non-professional help-

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 89
ers who also serve in the library’s help services can be difficult. They
should be able to refer people to the right public entity, but in practice
this is often complicated, requiring specialist knowledge of the public
administration and how it is organized. Another study of Red Cross
volunteers – part of thesis work conducted by Master’s students at the
IT University of Copenhagen – describes the long process of deciding
on the division of labor between the municipality’s responsibilities for
counselling and the voluntary services that offer guidance (Krustrup
and Berg 2022, p. 52).
Few of the helpers have the specific competences to train others in
digital matters. Nonetheless, the helpers often emphasize empathy, ba-
sic pedagogical skills, and infinite patience. A project that sought to
match elderly, visually impaired people with a group of young people
found that instructing helpers to assist in an appropriate way was not
straightforward. The elderly subjects pointed out a number of issues:
“[T]he young people are too quick. They point – you just do like this and
like this”; “You cannot ask children and grandchildren. They don’t get
that we don’t see well, everyone says so, they do it so quickly, so I don’t
manage to follow how they did it”; “When the youngster shows it to me,
I realize that they don’t think about the fact that we cannot see what
they do, they cannot understand the problem of bad eyesight” (Fuglerud
et al. 2018). The daughter of one of the authors used Flash, a figure from
the Pixar movie Sing who is a sloth and therefore quite slow, to illustrate
how it feels watching “an elderly person” (someone above 30) using a
mobile phone. As we could not reproduce the scene due to copyright,
we asked a 17-year-old to illustrate when one is expected to help within
something digital.1

1. https://youtu.be/ONFj7AYgbko

90 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
FIGURE 2. Feeling impatient when someone else uses a digital device and you
are expected to be involved. By Esther Vinther Ringsmose.

Of course, not all young people are skilled at navigating digital public
services. Older individuals, too, can experience similar frustration when
attempting to assist a younger relative with “boring municipal tasks” –
especially when the younger person is distracted or multitasking instead
of focusing fully on the task at hand. Offering help is time-consuming,
cognitively challenging, and can test one’s patience. The nature of the
help is sometimes concrete and tangible, and at other times emotional,
consisting of encouragement and persuasion to try, which requires an
emotional and relational investment that can also be taxing.

Proxy users
There are different ways to offer help to someone who is struggling with
digital services. One approach involves sitting down with the individual,
demonstrating, and explaining how to complete the task, with the goal
of teaching them to manage it independently in the future. The aim is
that they learn and become able to do the task on their own next time.

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 91
Alternatively, the helper can just do the task for them, to get it out of the
way. Taking over and doing things on behalf of the users is called “proxy
use”, and brings with it additional issues and challenges for the helpers.
Use on behalf of others is often perceived as the only feasible solution.
For instance, parents of neurodivergent children sometimes access their
digital mail by using the teenager’s digital ID and passwords, to avoid
missing out on important messages. If the child gets fined on the bus or
delivers a book to the library after the deadline, it can lead to penalties
that keep growing without anyone noticing. This can then lead to eco-
nomic sanctions later in life, with the unwitting offender ending up in a
“bad payers” registry. Some parents, especially parents of neurodivergent
children, are sensitive to this risk, and operate in the legal gray zone to
anticipate problems and protect the children.
In general, using someone else’s digital identity is illegal unless power
of attorney has been granted. If a bank who has issued the digital ID dis-
covers that it is being used by a family member, it will invalidate the ID,
regardless of the reason for such use. The illegal status of the informal
helpers’ work may put additional worries on their shoulders:

It is not a nice feeling to know that one is breaking the law. Something
you are reminded of if you call a public service. “You don’t have access
to the personal information, do you?” “No, not at all!” But you do,
because otherwise you couldn’t have helped, and the person at the
other end also knows this. But if I answer “No,” she can tick off that
she has asked, like she should. It is a pseudo-action, which seems to
make everyone happy.2

In a study of the experiences of proxy users in Australia, Selwyn et al.,

(2016) found that people tended to ask for help when conducting what
they perceive as important and/or “risky” activities, for instance relating

2. The interview with self-assigned “multi-helper” Rikke Former is available in

Danish at Kjærulff, A. (2023). SPECIAL: DTU konference om digital ulighed
og virksomheders ansvar. AFLYTTET https://soundcloud.com/garagen/
special-dtu-konference-om-digital-ulighed-og-virksomheders-ansvar?utm_
source=clipboard&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=social_sharing

92 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
to banking, personal finances, and purchasing goods. People often help
others out of a sense of obligation, often in familial relations, and as part of
broader support or care arrangements. Such help is usually episodic, not
continuous. Most proxy users tend to perform services “for” rather than
“with” someone, leading to few learning opportunities for the recipients
of the help. In contrast to professionals, who maintain clear boundaries
when assisting citizens, family-related helpers find it more challenging to
refuse help with tasks that encroach upon personal or sensitive areas of
life (Selwyn et al. 2016, p. 21). Among other things, the researchers found
that a “recurring area of contention in this sense was investments, shares
and property dealings that proxies considered required professional legal
advice and input” (ibid., p. 20). Some of the helpers were concerned with
being in this position, as the following demonstrates: “It’s stupid, but I
don’t want them getting dementia and then me being accused of trying
to swindle them out of their money. So I make sure that I always send
them an email straight after, saying ‘As agreed I have just transferred your
money over. Hopefully it’ll be with you in a couple of weeks’” (ibid., p. 23).
Other helpers reported, “I’ve got no issue taking their credit card [online]
because obviously they’re family, you know, I’m not going to rip them off,
I guess. I’m okay with that” (ibid., p. 21).
Agreeing to conduct digital tasks for someone else will put the helpers
in a risky situation. They will have access to passwords and other private
information belonging to the person they help, which means they can,
e.g. conduct financial transactions. The helper may then breach trust and
perpetrate fraud, or they may be suspected or accused of conducting such
fraud merely because they agreed to help. In either case, proxy use repre-
sents risks for both parties.

Organized voluntary help

Informal help with the digital technology can also be provided by volun-
teers who join civil-sector organizations, such as the Red Cross, service
clubs (e.g. Lions, Rotary, Kiwanis), and various organizations that cater
to seniors. Many of these have agendas focused on social inclusion, and
offer assistance with the challenges of digital inclusion. This can take

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 93
various forms. Drop-in help cafes are one example, and training to build
digital competences is another.
The majority of these organized initiatives are oriented toward raising
the population’s level of digital competence. For instance, in Norway, the
digitalization process has been followed by a significant effort to develop
teaching initiatives targeting elderly citizens, in the form of local, basic
digital competence courses, some of which are based on public financial
support of voluntary organizations. Seniornett is one of the central actors
in this field. Established in 1997, the organization is dedicated to build-
ing digital competence among senior citizens, by organizing courses,
offering on-site and online support services, and providing learning re-
sources. The local Volunteer Centers, the Red Cross, and the Pensioners’
Association also offer support for digital inclusion, in addition to other
services. The Swedish adult education organization Studieförbundet
Vuxenskolan offers a number of free or payment-based courses in digital
skills, some of which are oriented toward seniors. The organization also
offers individual, one-on-one consultations on how to use digital tech-
nology. In Denmark, Ældresagen3 works to support elderly citizens and
offers local courses, IT-cafes, and home help with IT. There are also a host
of governmental,4 non-governmental,5 and company6 websites that pro-
vide online support services, in the form of how-to guides and explana-
tions about central aspects of the digital. For example, Handbook for Sen-
iors (Seniorhåndbogen) is published by the NGO Professional Seniors,
which is the second largest organization for elderly people in Denmark,
with approximately 260,000 members.7
In general, this organized, voluntary work receives relatively modest,
ad hoc funding and relies on voluntary activity, as the intermittent public

3. https://www.aeldresagen.dk/
4. See, e.g. The Swedish Post and Telecom Authority’s (Digitalhjälpen), https://pts.
se/sv/digitalhjalpen/
5. See, e.g. the site Internetkunskap from the Swedish Internetstiftelsen, https://
internetkunskap.se/ and Seniornett’s https://www.seniornett.no/category/tips-
og-triks/
6. See, e.g. the startup Kakadu https://www.kakadu.no/ or Dataskolen https://
www.dataskolen.no/
7. https://seniorhaandbogen.dk/digital/

94 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
support in the form of project-based funding is often only oriented toward
covering direct costs and not salaries. Moreover, there has traditionally been
less focus on supporting the helpers with education and training resources,
and little effort directed towards creating meeting places for mutual learn-
ing among the various voluntary organizations. However, in 2023, the
Agency for Digital Government Denmark began to encourage applications
from organizations to support the volunteers. According to the website,
the purpose of this is “so that they have the best possible preconditions for
helping citizens, who are challenged by the digitalization of society”.8
Models that rely on enrolling volunteers can include various forms
of partnerships with public support services. Many Norwegian munici-
palities organize digital support according to the Digihjelpen (DigiHelp)
model,9 and usually recruit helpers from among existing staff, often
from libraries and citizen centers. One exception is the Alna city district
in Oslo, which has enrolled young adults who, for different reasons, have
been outside of working life. In this way, people’s need for help also be-
comes an opportunity for social contact and work experience for those
who have experienced other forms of social exclusion.

Supporting informal helpers

Given the challenges, risks, and frustrations associated with the helper
role, we think there are opportunities for making the work easier, includ-
ing educating the helpers, supporting them in their work, and adapting
the design of the digital services to accommodate the helper. Experiences
from several initiatives that aimed to pair young helpers with non-digi-
tal or less-digital, often elderly, citizens show that being a digital helper
in a drop-in café is not a straightforward task. The expectation is that
the younger generation, often referred to as digital natives, will be able
to share their digital skills, thereby adding extra value to both sides of

8. https://digst.dk/nyheder/nyhedsarkiv/2023/oktober/soeg-tilskud-til-din-or-
ganisations-arbejde-med-it-hjaelp/
9. https://www.ks.no/fagomrader/digitalisering/kompetanse-og-verktoy/digih-
jelpen/

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 95
the intergenerational meetings. As we discussed above, being a helper
requires patience and empathy, and people’s needs often go beyond the
digital, and involve the content of the digital service itself.
Becoming a digital helper may require more extensive groundwork,
such as training and steady organizational support. For instance, pupils
in Norwegian schools may choose the elective subject “Work for Oth-
ers”10 and could team up with voluntary organizations that enlist young
people as digital helpers. Pupils benefit from proper preparation for such
work, and the DigiVenn project11 (DigiFriend) has developed a model
for how to approach this, which more than 200 Norwegian schools
have adopted. The project’s goals include the creation of inter-genera-
tional meeting places, countering digital isolation, and increasing both
general digital competence and, more specifically, digital health compe-
tence among those with little or none. The project works with a teaching
model whereby young pupils in upper-secondary schools are taught how
to approach and teach non-digital citizens. They are also taught how to
train other pupils to become helpers so that the project becomes self-sus-
taining. The project recruits pupils who are studying either health and
youth development, media and communication, or IT and media pro-
duction, and the service is provided both through home visits and by
offering support services in public arenas such as libraries. Before they
start, the pupils learn about health challenges in the elderly population
and how to motivate others, and get practical tips for teaching and as-
sisting. They are educated in pedagogic approaches, and learn to plan,
design, and conduct digital teaching sessions. Additionally, they develop
skills in communication and interaction relevant to teaching situations.
Throughout their work, students have access to digital resources, includ-
ing demonstration videos from a competence platform that provides in-
structive videos, and documents that describe how to conduct various
digital tasks on different platforms.
Formalizing the helper role in the design of digital public services
could be an important step. When banks allow their customers to ap-

10. https://www.udir.no/lk20/ifa01-02
11. A project where youths are matched with elderly: https://livsgledeforeldre.no/
digivenn/

96 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
point a co-trustee for their accounts, the IT systems will reflect this
shared responsibility, and allow the co-trustee access. A legally formal-
ized helper role that is also reflected in the system design – providing, for
example, the possibility to log in as oneself and keeping a log of actions
– would help address some of the problems with proxy use. Some digital
public services, such as the Norwegian healthcare platform Helsenorge,
are starting to develop the possibility of appointing someone to a digital
helper role and delegating certain tasks to them.12 Here, citizens can de-
cide how much access the helper should have (there are three levels, with
differentiated access to information and digital services), and can initiate
and terminate this delegation themselves when they want. The Finnish
digital public services offer a generic solution to allow for the appoint-
ment of a delegate, who can be a digital helper.13
The Danish government has collected and published a set of prac-
tical guidelines for informal digital helpers, describing how to provide
assistance, as well as addressing risks, pitfalls, and opportunities.14 There
is value in consolidating the various scattered local initiatives from vol-
untary organizations and establishing platforms for knowledge-sharing
and coordination of their efforts. Additionally, it can be useful to provide
“dummy services”, versions of which do exist for some public services.15
These can be helpful for the users themselves, as they are able to experi-
ment with logging in and other tasks without being afraid of doing some-
thing wrong. Moreover, demonstrators using a fictional persona can al-
low volunteer helpers to demonstrate logging in or service use without
sharing their personal information. Supporting the informal helpers can
also take the form of offering an accessible chat or telephone hotline.
While these are not necessarily directly useful for the non-digital citizen,
they may be an important resource for the digital helpers.

12. https://www.helsenorge.no/fullmakt/
13. E-authorizations, see: https://www.suomi.fi/e-authorizations
14. https://www.borger.dk/hjaelp-og-vejledning/hvad-har-du-brug-for-hjaelp-til/
saadan-kan-og-maa-du-hjaelpe-digitalt
15. See, e.g.: https://demo.borger.dk/ and https://demo.bankid.com/

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 97
 Scholars’ understanding of digital help
Several studies on societal digitalization have noted the significance of
informal helpers. For instance, Stewart (2007) concluded that the emer-
gence of local experts constituted “the essential foundation for the wide-
spread appropriation of new ICTs” (ibid., p. 551). These local experts
were not formally trained, nor were they self-appointed as experts. In-
stead, they were sought out since they possessed relatively more knowl-
edge (or willingness to learn) about ICT, or for other reasons, such as
owning a printer or other scarce resources – in other words, their “expert
identity” was emergent. Stewart described several such local, site-spe-
cific, heterogeneous networks of local experts, and showed that they
were instrumental in the spread of ICT knowledge in the community.
Similarly, Bakardjieva (2005) pointed out the important role of infor-
mal and non-professional helpers, called warm experts, who mediate
“between the technological universal and the concrete situation, needs
and background of the novice user with whom he is in a close personal
relationship” (ibid., p. 99).
However, we should also seek a more elaborate understanding of
what the helpers do and the implications of this role and work. Sakari
Taipale’s work on the impact of digital technology on families is rele-
vant, as it raises questions about newly emerging roles and their distribu-
tion within the family. For instance, the notion of digital housekeeping
addresses the tasks and responsibilities associated with the handling of
digital technologies at home. Taipale distinguishes between three sub-
categories: 1) hardware installation and configuration, 2) digital content
and software management, and 3) transfer of knowledge within the fam-
ily (Taipale 2019). The types of tasks with which people need help are
wide-ranging, from upgrading electronic devices such as phones, tablets,
or computers, to other technologies such as smart-home equipment (e.g.
temperature controls) or televisions. For Taipale’s first category (hard-
ware installations and configurations), this is a recurring need, as more
help may be required to reconfigure devices following software upgrades
or power outages. When considering digital public services, and not just
digital devices in general, it is important to note that people may also
need a significant amount of help with logging into the services (includ-

98 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
ing accessing and managing their digital ID), and with understanding
the requirements and content of the online service.
Another significant aspect is how informal help impacts social rela-
tions. How does this reconfigure family relationships, friendships and
neighborly relations? How are new responsibilities distributed, and what
does this mean for what is acknowledged, prioritized, and neglected
(Vikkelsø 2005)? Sociologically oriented studies of care work have of-
fered both conceptual resources and a wealth of empirical studies that
illuminate how the invisible and unacknowledged work associated with
care is distributed. The burden of care (Fadden et al. 1987; O’Neill, and
Ross 1991) is a notion that has been used to describe physical, emotional,
social, and financial problems that family caregivers may experience. Can
this approach be reapplied to studying the burden of digital care? Addi-
tionally, research on digital helpers should study whether the gendered
distribution of practical care work is being replicated or changed when
it comes to digital care work. Is “digital care” added to the general care
tasks, or is it handled by people other than the usual informal caregivers?
These questions remain unanswered so far.
To study this, the conceptual resources presented in Chapter 3 on in-
visible work and articulation work (see, e.g. Strauss 1985; Gasser 1986;
Star 1991; Schmidt and Bannon 1992; Star and Strauss 1999) are once
again relevant. In addition, we would suggest that the perspective from
what are broadly denoted as repair studies can be useful. Steve Jackson
(2014) defines repair as “[t]he subtle acts of care by which order and
meaning in complex sociotechnical systems are maintained and trans-
formed, human value is preserved and extended, and the complicated
work of fitting to the varied circumstances of organizations, systems,
and lives is accomplished” (ibid., p. 222). The repair perspective takes
the limits, fragility, and risks of the natural, social, and technological di-
mensions of our worlds seriously (ibid., p. 221). It draws our attention
to problems, gaps, and cracks, but also to the continuous work of res-
toration, building connections, and bringing things together (Graham
and Thrift 2007). The work of maintaining and upholding these worlds
may bring new insights. “Can the fixers know and see different things
– indeed, different worlds – than the better-known figures of ‘designer’
or ‘user’?” asks Jackson (2014, p. 229). The digital helper is one of the

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 99
“fixers” who help to repair the missing connections and elements in the
digital welfare system. We think it is important to attend to the helpers;
they bring crucial insights into the quest for digital inclusion. In Chapter
7, we return to the concept of repair as a way of promoting responsible
digitalization through systemic preparedness.

Conclusion
Above, we presented the successful use of digital services as an achieve-
ment that is co-produced by several actors and through multiple rela-
tionships. We argued that the helpers often play a central role. With the
help of the IT café volunteer, Louise was able to upgrade her phone and
stay connected. Thanks to the visit of his daughter, Karl managed to ful-
fill his duties as a digital citizen.
We should remember that the need for digital help is a consequence
of how the government has chosen to conduct the digitalization of pub-
lic services. According to a blogpost by Sieling-Monas and Antczak, dig-
italization of the public welfare system has effected a multi-directional
displacement of responsibility and work: 1) from the public welfare sys-
tem to the citizen, 2) to digitally marginalized citizens’ social networks,
3) to civil-society organizations, when people do not have a network on
which to draw, and 4) internal displacement within the public system,
when another entity acquires the tasks and cost of unsuccessful digital-
ization.16 Similarly, Hjelholt and Papazu (2021) present an analysis that
demonstrates that the welfare state’s infrastructure is withdrawing from
citizens who are unable to serve themselves or be trained in self-help. This
exacerbates their need of help, and others need to step in to make things
work.17

16. Sieling-Monas, S.M. & Antczak, H.B. (2024). “Digitalisering af det offentlige fly-
tter ansvaret for velfærden over på den enkelte borger”. Blog post, Altinget, 2
January 2024. https://www.altinget.dk/digital/artikel/forskere-naar-den-offen-
tlige-sektor-digitaliseres-hviler-velfaerden-paa-den-enkelte-borger
17. For an overview of research on digitalization and vulnerable citizens, see Bächler,
C. M. (2022). Den digitaliserede forvaltning og borgere i udsatte positioner – en
forskningsoversigt. Socialt arbejde og velfærd, SocVe, 2(1), 3-12.

100 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 There are various ways in which assistance is provided, and there are
different types of helpers. Some helper groups include more or less will-
ing family members or neighbors, while others involve organized volun-
teers. At times, there may be overlaps with individuals whose job it is to
assist with digital matters. As helpers, all of us play a crucial role in ensur-
ing the functioning of the digital welfare state. However, it raises ques-
tions about whether the help we provide is merely covering up the cracks
and digital misfits that should have been addressed by other means. Does
helping obscure the consequences of the state’s digitalization, thereby
enabling it to continue an exclusion-generating program? What is the
appropriate and legitimate extent of volunteer help?
We cannot provide answers to these questions, but we want to stim-
ulate discussion on the existence and significance of hitherto unrecog-
nized work by informal helpers.18 We argue that the importance of help
should be recognized as instrumental in the digitalization of the welfare
state. When the Nordic governments boast about their achievements,
they should do so knowing that their digitalization results depend on
the host of frustrated parents, sons, daughters, siblings, neighbors, and
public employees who carry part of the burden of making the digital-
ized state work. This fact should be acknowledged, and this knowledge
should enter the public debate about digitalization.
This does not mean that we think that people should not help. The
opportunity to be of help may be positive. For instance, as Mohammed
Bamou (a helper in Oslo) says, “Getting the job here has constituted 70%
of my happiness the last few years.”19 Neither do we argue that the state
should take over and fund and organize all help – this would not be fea-
sible. But we wish to talk about the work performed by helpers, and thus
make it visible so that it can be recognized and supported, and we have
sketched some ways to do this in this chapter.

18. An exception is this report focusing on informal digital support for elderly people
in Denmark: Andersen, Stig B., Mortensen, Sofie S., Lassen, Aske J. & Jespersen,
Astrid P. 2024, Støtte i den offentlige digitalisering: En kvalitativ undersøgelse af
digital støtte og digitale støttepersoner i Danmark. https://static-curis.ku.dk/por-
tal/files/380360620/sidod_core_rapport_2024.pdf
19. https://www.ks.no/fagomrader/digitalisering/kompetanse-og-verktoy/digih-
jelpen/digitalt-utenforskap/dobbel-effekt-i-bydelen/

D i g i ta l s u pp o rt by n o n - pr o f e s s i o n a l s a n d v o lu n t e e r s 101
 Besides recognizing and supporting the helpers, there is the addi-
tional question of whether some of the informal help should be handled
by others, possibly becoming a formal help service. The digital welfare
states should have a discussion about how to distribute the responsibil-
ity for digital exclusion among the involved actors. What can reasonably
be expected from the family and other informal helpers? What should
and should not be done by public-sector employees? What kind of help
should we demand from the store that sold the equipment? What about
the banks that issued the digital ID? To what extent do they have a re-
sponsibility to help people who are struggling? What about the service
provider? Is their help function adequate, or should they invest more re-
sources in addressing the problem?
We need to discuss who owns the problem, and thus who should
participate in taking responsibility for addressing it. A library man-
ager recounted that when the Danish public transport company (DSB)
swapped their paper travel cards for an electronic smartcard, a lot of el-
derly citizens approached the library for help: “We took on the task, be-
cause no one else did, including the DSB. We started with one course,
and we ended by holding 30. We called the DSB and said, ‘Come and help
us with doing these courses, because it is actually your customers that we
are helping’” (Carreras and Winthereik 2022, p. 9).
In this chapter, we wanted to draw attention to the informal help-
ers in the digital welfare state in order to demonstrate that the informal
helper is an important participant in the co-production of the citizen
who can live in a digital welfare society. The informal helper often makes
the difference between people managing and not managing to navigate
the emergent configurations. Therefore, we think it is crucial that this
work is visible to policy-makers and technology designers – if not, it will
not be acknowledged, supported, or taken into account. Recognition and
attention could lift the digital help provided by informal helpers out of
the gray zones and policy shadows, thereby allowing our welfare societies
to provide better solutions that eliminate some of the problems and risks
of their work.

102 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 CHAPTER 6

Inclusive infrastructures

If we consider the built physical environment – buildings, public places,

and cities – we can observe how design matters. If we make the choice to
build curbs, stairs, and thresholds, we are also choosing to create barriers
that hinder people’s movement, forcing a wheelchair user, for example,
to ask for help from bystanders or request a ramp or lift.1 Similarly, when
choosing which colors and fonts to use on signs, we either accommo-
date or inconvenience people with visual impairments. In other words,
those who design and build the physical environment can be said to “cre-
ate” disability or inclusion. Design practices and choices are significant
sources of exclusion of and discrimination against different people. In
the same way, digital designers’ choices when developing infrastructure
also contribute to either enabling or disabling users (Perry et al. 1997).2
To prevent or at least minimize such exclusion, some countries have
regulated the design of the shared physical environment. The require-
ment for accessibility in all public buildings and spaces (later extended
to at least partly cover workplaces) was implemented in Sweden in 1966,
in Norway in 1976, and in Denmark in 1995, often necessitating the ret-
rofitting of existing buildings and structures in order to comply. This
does not always generate optimal solutions, and the emergence of so-

1. Grue, J. (2018) is a first-hand account of living with disability. The author at-
tends to ramps as socio-material objects that embed many values both prior to
and after use, which impacts wheelchair users’ mobility significantly.
2. Perry et al. (1997) distinguish between intrinsic and circumstantial conceptions
of disability. Our point relates to the circumstantial aspect, i.e. that if the right
tools and structures are available, more users can be enabled to use technologies.

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 103
called universal design principles was intended to ensure that these concerns
would in future be integrated at an early stage. Accessibility regulations
guide the design process by outlining aims and priorities and by plac-
ing constraints on certain choices, such as the rules for minimum door
width. The regulations may result in a choice of solutions – for example,
automatically opening doors – that are also perceived as beneficial by oth-
ers. These regulations are not just a list of technical requirements; rather,
they convey a commitment to achieving equality and non-discrimination
based on an acknowledgement of the importance of design decisions.
In this chapter, we focus on accessible digital technologies, and briefly
describe some of the efforts to ensure that digital products (devices) and
services are designed with accessibility in mind. However, it is not enough
merely to consider each concrete digital device or service. Rather, the
main message of this chapter is that we also need to understand how
digital infrastructures contribute to producing digital exclusion.

Accessible digital services and technologies

When general accessibility concerns travelled from the physical into the
digital domain, they initially did so under the label of “web accessibility”.
Such initiatives also sought to ensure universal access to digital services.
Further measures have been developed in order to increase digital inclu-
sion through considerate design practices. However, it is important to re-
member that until relatively recently (the 1970s), people with disabilities
were not treated as equal to other citizens. They have been systematically
discriminated against and did not have the same rights as other citizens.
As such, there are histories to refer to when designing for infrastructural
inclusivity. The same also goes for migrants.

Universal Access design guidelines

In 1997 the World Wide Web Consortium launched the Web Accessibil-
ity Initiative to improve accessibility for people with disabilities.3 This led

3. https://www.w3.org/WAI/

104 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
to development of the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG),
which were published in 1999 as version 1.0 and in 2008 as version 2.0.
Currently, WCAG 2.1 and 2.2 are used.4 The standard contains require-
ments that make the web accessible for people with various disabilities,
offering, for instance, recommendations on how to provide captions for
audio media content to enable people who are D/deaf or hard of hearing
to access it. Blind people often use screen readers to access the web, but
this is difficult if the pages are not properly coded, so the WCAG guide-
lines provide information on how to make pages navigable and accessible
to screen readers. This includes the provisioning of alt-text description
on images and other visual content. People who cannot use their arms
to control a mouse may depend on navigating pages by keyboard com-
mands, and the WCAG standard specifies how this should be provided.
Those who are color-blind may encounter problems if, for instance, red
and green are used to signal status change or other significant informa-
tion on the page. Providing adequate contrast (or adjustable contrast
settings) and allowing the font size to be enlarged benefits people with
impaired vision. These are just a few examples of the aspects covered by
the WCAG standards.
Under some legal jurisdictions, technology designers are obliged to
adhere to accessibility standards. In the EU area, all public-sector web-
sites and apps must follow the Web Accessibility Directive (WAD), which
incorporates the WCAG version 2.1 standard.5 In addition, the Directive
requires websites and mobile apps to publish an accessibility statement,
and calls for a feedback mechanism for users to flag accessibility prob-
lems. Non-public sector websites can still follow WCAG 2.0. Under US ju-
risdiction, federal government agencies have to comply with the WCAG

4. In 2023 a Working Draft of WCAG version 3.0 was published with similar ac-
cessibility requirements, but a different structure, different conformance model,
and broader scope. This is still in an early stage.
5. The guidelines have been enforced as legally binding through the so-called “Eu-
ropean Accessibility Act”, Directive (EU) 2019/882 of the European Parliament
and of the Council of 17 April 2019 on the accessibility requirements for prod-
ucts and services. The European Standard for accessibility requirements for ICT
products and services is called EN 301 549.

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 105
2.0.6 Private companies also have to provide accessible websites,7 but are
not obliged to follow a specific standard (e.g. WCAG) in doing so. In Can-
ada, the AODA (accessibility standards for organizations in Ontario) has
also formally incorporated the WCAG standard. The legal endorsement
is, however, not enough in itself; these concerns also need to be taken up
and implemented by the IT industry and teaching institutions to a larger
degree than we see today.
The main group of concern was people with disabilities such as visual,
hearing, or cognitive impairment. However, over time, the inclusive de-
sign initiatives became broader, and sought to accommodate human di-
versity more generally. People can differ in terms of preferred degree and
type of sociability, learning patterns, and in how they regulate attention
and mood. This is the starting point of the initiative called the Neurodi-
versity Design System,8 which offers design principles that are informed
by the needs of neurodiverse users and learners. For instance, people with
ADHD may benefit from text-to-speech software, those with dyslexia can
benefit from software that highlights the text on the screen as it reads it
aloud. The next standard version (WCAG 3.0) will cover more user needs,
including those of people with cognitive disabilities. It is worth noting
that developers and vendors often see the provision of various accessi-
bility features as costly and potentially compromising usability for the
majority of users. To counter this reluctance, guidelines, pedagogics, and
tools are being developed to advance universal design principles.9
Here, it is important to mention the critique by Aimi Hamraie (2017)
that designers can speak on behalf of people who are disempowered by
built/online environments. They explain that the problem of universal
design principles is not that they are too broad, but that they work on the
basis of an average person. Advancing universal design as “human-cen-
tered” supports the idea that design can be neutral and support any hu-
man, which is an idea of which disability activists are critical.

6. Enforced from January 2018 (section 508 in the Rehabilitation Act of 1973).
7. According to the prohibition of discrimination in the Americans with Disabili-
ties Act (ADA).
8. https://neurodiversity.design/
9. See https://universaldesignhub.dk/ and htps://universaldesignguide.com/

106 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 Plain language initiatives

Improvement initiatives based on a communicative perspective of citi-

zenship also exist under the label of “plain language”. The International
Plain Language Federation defines plain language thus: “A communica-
tion is in plain language if its wording, structure, and design are so clear
that the intended audience can easily find what they need, understand
what they find, and use that information” (IPLF, no date). In 2023, the
International Organization for Standardization (ISO) published a plain
language standard,10 with the aim of improving communication with the
general public, in order to promote equity and access to information. The
standard provides writers and communications professionals with nearly
universal plain language principles, guidelines, and techniques intended
to help them create accessible and effective communication. Some coun-
tries also have legally enshrined requirements for using plain language in
public communication.11
Plain language has been examined from an ethical perspective. For in-
stance, Willerton (2015) developed the BUROC (Bureaucratic, Unfamil-
iar, Rights-Oriented, and Critical) model, to identify situations in which
ethical communication is particularly relevant. In such situations, it is
particularly important to facilitate accessibility, as doing so strengthens
people’s participation and agency. Jones and Williams (2017) also discuss
plain language from a social justice perspective, in which they broaden
the concern from individuals to identify and address the oppression of
certain groups of people. They argue that a narrow, usability-oriented
focus on following plain language guidelines is not sufficient to coun-
ter systematic oppression (e.g. as demonstrated in their study of Afri-
can-Americans in the USA). Rather than merely seeking only efficient
information dissemination, they recommend that one should employ
broader, “human-centered design approaches” that are more inclusive

10. ISO 24495-1:2023 Plain language – Part 1: Governing principles and guidelines.
11. For example, the Norwegian Lov om språk (språklova). (LOV-2021-05-21-42)
has a separate paragraph on plain language: “§ 9. Klart språk. Offentlege organ
skal kommunisere på eit klart og korrekt språk som er tilpassa målgruppa.” Lov-
data. https://lovdata.no/lov/2021-05-21-42/§9

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 107
and collaborative, and see plain language initiatives as a means to am-
plify agency and reduce inequity (Acton 2023).
Within the Nordic countries, Sweden has worked on plain language
in its public communications for several decades, and has institutional-
ized this in legal measures. The Swedish Institute for Language and Folk-
lore (Isof), a Swedish government authority, has developed guidelines
that support writers in their use of plain language principles to produce
accessible text.12 Concrete, interactive tools are offered that can a) help
with planning in regard to identifying the audience and purpose of the
text, b) offer concrete advice on the writing, and c) test the finished text.
Similarly, the Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities
(KS) offers a set of guidelines specifically for public self-service solu-
tions,13 while the Norwegian Directorate of Digitalization has developed
practical guidelines, process advice, and materials for working with plain
language in projects, based on its own experience in the field.14 These are
not primarily text-oriented guidelines, but target communication more
broadly. A central premise is that the guidelines should not be considered
a checklist to be applied to the product itself only at the end of the pro-
ject; rather, plain language principles can support all phases of the work.
If the guidelines are employed throughout the process and within the
project group itself, they facilitate, for example, better concurrence and
shared understanding of the project’s aims, better in-group communica-
tion, easier user involvement, and also a better end product. In Denmark,
plain language initiatives emerged later and have also been less extensive
than in the other Nordic countries. However, an explicit critique of the
public administration’s “chancellery style” in its communication with
citizens is evident (Kjærgaard 2016).

12. https://www.isof.se/stod-och-sprakrad/spraktjanster/klarsprakshjalpen
13. https://www.ks.no/fagomrader/digitalisering/klart-sprak-i-digitale-selvbetjen-
ingslosninger/
14. https://www.digdir.no/klart-sprak/rettleiar-om-klarsprak-i-utvikling-av-digi-
tale-tenester/3564

108 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 Improving service interoperability
While concrete design choices regarding the interface to the device or
the service are crucially important for building inclusive digital environ-
ments, other aspects matter, too. Some initiatives seek to improve service
quality for individual services, and others specifically target the connec-
tion between a number of (interlinked) public services.
Work that focuses on achieving high service quality often seeks to em-
ploy inclusive and collaborative methods that engage end-users early in
the process. In the service design field, questions regarding the aim of
inclusion have been raised (Fisk et al. 2018) as part of the discourse on
transformative service design. Fisk et al. propose four “pillars” of service
inclusion: enabling opportunity, offering choice, relieving suffering, and
fostering happiness. Service design often works with a hierarchy: individ-
ual encounters are part of a larger service system that has been developed
as part of a service concept. The Multilevel Service Design (MSD) method
(Patrício et al. 2011) describes the need to design both the service system
and the service concept level at the service encounter – for instance, when
applying service design methods, the focus may be on service encounters,
i.e. the “service touchpoints” along a user’s journey.
Several governmental agencies employ a so-called life-event approach,
which focuses on the users’ needs connected to specific life events such as
birth, starting school, retirement, starting a business, moving, or getting
married. According to Gros (2020), this principle has emerged in eGov-
ernment discourse on government portals (Leben et al. 2004), and has
been applied as an organizational framework for the collaboration of dif-
ferent service providers in producing integrated service approaches. Re-
cently, service designers have also employed it as a lens for user research
aimed at understanding the context in which people are using services.
The life-event approach is used in Norway,15 Denmark,16 New Zealand,17

15. https://www.digdir.no/sammenhengende-tjenester/arbeidet-med-de-sju-
livshendelsene/1170
16. https://digst.dk/digital-service/brugeroplevelse/sammenhaengende-brugerre-
jser/
17. https://www.digital.govt.nz/blog/smartstart-a-federated-service-life-event-
story/

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 109
Australia,18 France,19 and Estonia,20 and is intended to provide a user-cen-
tered perspective that will lead to more integration between the services
of various public entities.

Broadening the perspective

It is crucially important to ensure that the interfaces between devices
and service, as well as the service logic behind the interface, and the con-
nection to the larger service system, are all designed well. However, if we
only consider devices and services individually, we will not be able to un-
derstand and address all of the challenges beyond the interface. We also
need to look at the infrastructure: all of the social, material, and institu-
tional connections that we find if we look “behind the screen” of a digi-
tal service, when it becomes apparent that digital services are not neatly
bounded, well-defined, stand-alone pieces of software. In this section, we
discuss digital services from an infrastructure perspective, which helps us
see how they are composites (i.e. they are made up of different components)
and networked (i.e. the individual services are connected to each other and
to an underlying infrastructure). Let us explain.

Digital services are not neatly bounded

Typically, a digital service is built by combining different software com-
ponents. As a simple and hopefully familiar example, let us consider a
webshop that offers a digital purchasing service. It will have a custom-
er-facing frontpage, but it also needs to handle a lot of back-end tasks.
One separate component may handle the visual presentation of the
goods and allow the customer to place the order. This part will commu-
nicate with another component that manages the company’s inventory

18. https://www.dta.gov.au/digital-transformation-strategy/3-strategic-priori
ties/government-thats-easy-deal/integrated-services-supporting-your-
needs-and-life-events
19. https://www.mesdroitssociaux.gouv.fr/vos-evenements-de-vie/accueil
20. https://www.eesti.ee/en

110 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
and supports the logistics of packing and shipping. A third component
handles payment. Here we have used the notion of “component” as a
general term. Sometimes, if it is a so-called suite (all-in-one) system, the
various components are just different software modules within the same
software system. In other cases, the components are different software
systems (distinct products) that are provided by different software ven-
dors and have been integrated with each other. The latter brings with it
further complexities – for instance, if you buy a new version of one of the
components, you will also need to rebuild the integration with the other
components, which could present time-consuming and costly challenges
that you did not anticipate. The internal complexity also introduces de-
pendencies that stretch beyond the webshop itself – for example, the same
product may be used by many different customers, who may have differ-
ent requirements, and ask the software vendor to change or upgrade the
software accordingly. This may or may not be taken into account by ven-
dors, whose decision must be based on economic assessment of any addi-
tional functionality they invest in developing. If the software architecture
combines core functionality with sector- or customer-specific additions,
this may be more feasible.
We also find complexity when we look at the larger system land-
scapes. The Nordic countries were frontrunners in digitalizing their pub-
lic sectors, starting in the 1960s. This implies that the system landscapes
of public-sector entities have grown over many decades, and contain a
multitude of systems belonging to different technological generations.
These legacy systems were built according to different architectural princi-
ples, run on different platforms, use different programming languages,
and so on, creating a highly complex internal infrastructure with many
point-to-point integrations. Figure 1 provides a graphical illustration of
what the system landscape looked like a few years ago in the Norwegian
Labour and Welfare Administration (NAV).

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 111
FIGURE 3. A representation of the ICT system landscape in NAV.21 The image is
deliberately blurred to hide technical information.

The high number of interconnections between systems creates depend-

encies that may restrict the freedom to change and upgrade systems
and services. Such backward compatibility may be crucial to maintain
operations, and a change in one of these components may have conse-
quences for others. Many of the problematic IT projects in both public
and private organizations have realized the importance of this internal
complexity the hard way. The notion of the “installed base” in informa-
tion infrastructure studies seeks to draw attention to the already existing
system landscape or preconditions. The installed base is at the same time
a resource on which to build and a constraint for further developments.
As an example, in Denmark Google Suite for education has been in-
stalled as a base for communication among pupils and teachers. In 2023,
the Danish Data Protection Agency deemed the use of Google products
in public schools illegal, but this installed base is now hard to remove,
because it contains so much data and has become a routine means of

21. https://nilsnh.no/2017/04/09/ein-introduksjon-til-nav-sine-it-systemer-og-it-
arkitektur/ 4

112 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
communication.22 Thus, an installed base is also a hindrance to change,
due to what is called installed base inertia, in technical, practical, economic,
institutional, or other aspects.
This reality also shapes the degree to which modern and novel us-
er-centered services can be developed and implemented, if at all. The
complexity implies that changes are costly; moreover, it is not easy to
pinpoint who is responsible if the interconnectedness causes problems.
Therefore, it is also important to pay attention to how this relates to in-
clusion. We need to be able to recognize and understand the elements
that comprise the composite and interconnected nature of services. In
addition, their dependencies on underlying infrastructures, the installed
base, are important.

Digital services depend on underlying shared resources

Almost all digital services are connected to an underlying infrastructure
that provides resources across multiple organizations. If we consider
the webshop again, its payment solution must be connected to large, in-
ternational infrastructures that support financial transactions, such as
VisaNet (a global payments network for card transactions) or some other
credit-card system, or PayPal (which started as a payment solution for
e-commerce, but evolved into a larger digital payment ecosystem). If we
look beneath both of these, we may find that they use the SWIFT net-
work (a global messaging network between financial institutions).
In the same way, public digital services, whether for welfare, childcare
benefits, or building permits, are connected to external digital resources
that are shared by many. For instance, many public digital services will
pull demographic information about the citizens from some form of civil
register or population register. Such population registers are also crucial
foundations for providing digital identification infrastructures that al-
low identification, authentication, and authorization. Many such shared
resources exist. Let us consider the processing of building permit appli-

22 https://www.wiredrelations.com/blog/it-all-started-with-a-data-breach-keeping-
childrens-data-safe?utm_content=282893235&utm_medium=social&utm_
source=linkedin&hss_channel=lcp-18289289

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 113
cations as an example. It involves the use of geographical information
systems, cadastral information resources (which provide information
about ownership), and maps and spatial data infrastructures, to mention
a few. These connections are not only one-way, whereby data is drawn
from the (national) infrastructure resource by the service user who needs
to look up information. The existence of such centralized information
infrastructures also implies that they need to be “fed” with the required
data, which come from the activities happening at the front-end of ser-
vice provision. Public service provision is documented and monitored
through data being reported to governmental statistics bureaus, and this
obligation to collect and report data also shapes how the individual sys-
tems record and register data.
Being connected to these underlying infrastructures both offers op-
portunities and imposes constraints on the digital services. For example,
the fact the webshop is connected to a global payment infrastructure en-
ables customers from different countries to purchase goods – a mode
of interoperability that is a central benefit of connecting to the larger dig-
ital infrastructures. However, this interoperability depends on the par-
ticipants’ adherence to certain standards, which have been introduced to
curb the natural heterogeneity that arises when many participants are
brought together, and which impose certain constraints on each user and
work to “discipline” them. The reliance on other, underlying systems and
infrastructures also brings the owners of these systems into the picture.
Thus, there are limits to the decision-making possibilities of the service
owners (the public entity that offers the service), as some of the func-
tionality and constraints may be determined by these other, underlying
infrastructures.
When we try to look behind the screen of digital services, we should,
therefore, also investigate these underlying, shared resources, which are
parts of the infrastructures, and have a significant impact on the effort
to build inclusive digital societies. Our research has shown that digital
identity infrastructures in particular contribute to digital exclusion. Be-
fore we explore this more deeply, let us first present the theoretical back-
ground and some conceptual resources that are relevant when approach-
ing digital services.

114 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 The infrastructure perspective
Some researchers have conceptualized large-scale, interconnected socio-
technical systems as infrastructures. Infrastructure studies extend across
several disciplines, including science and technology studies, informa-
tion systems, media studies, and anthropology, and emphasize the inter-
connectedness and the often hidden dependencies of their study objects.
This stream of research therefore offers several useful conceptual tools
that may help us recognize and address the complex set of connections
that we find under the surface or behind the screen of digital services.23
We draw in particular on information infrastructure studies, as they have
been applied in the context of digital public services (Aanestad et al.
2017). Our aim is to be able to think and envision “inclusive infrastruc-
tures” – in other words, digital infrastructures that help to offer public
digital services to all citizens. Inclusive infrastructures should enable ac-
cess to welfare service delivery, regardless of platform and access point.

Relational aspects of digital services

Information infrastructures are often established in order to allow data
and information to be shared among a large number of actors; shared
infrastructures in the research domain are a prime example of this
(Bowker et al. 2010). In one of the seminal articles that initiated the re-
search stream of social studies of infrastructures, Susan Leigh Star and
Karen Ruhleder (1994) studied a global collaboration network, namely
the community of biology scientists participating in the large, global
Human Genome Project (1990–2003), which pioneered global digital re-
search infrastructures. Data from different labs were shared online in a
collective effort to develop knowledge, tools, and skills in gene sequenc-
ing. Star and Ruhleder describe the tensions associated with establishing
such a shared research infrastructure. For instance, the individual labs
needed to learn to operate a new system that was different from their fa-
miliar computer systems, report data in specific formats, and use shared

23. While the word “infrastructure” may evoke images of “technology”, we consider
infrastructures as socio-technical, not just technical, phenomena.

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 115
terminology. They also mention the tension between multiple, diverse
“localities” (the various local, historically emergent, particular practices)
and one shared “globality” (representing the collective aim of aggregated
knowledge in a universalized form). This local–global tension, they say, is a
fundamental characteristic of infrastructures (see also Jensen and Win-
thereik 2013).
This view of information infrastructures is fundamentally relational;
the infrastructure is seen not as a “thing in itself” that precedes the
collaboration, but as something that emerges “between” its users as
they work to create collaboration. The approach is also ecological; it
assumes that what makes up the infrastructure is a “distributed set of
activities – technical, social and institutional” (Bowker et al. 2010: 101).
From such a relational and ecological perspective, the right question,
they say, is therefore not “what is an infrastructure?” but “when is an
infrastructure?” Their answer is that “an infrastructure occurs when
the tension between local and global is resolved”, which is concretized
as “when local practices are afforded by a large-scale technology, which
can then be used in a natural, ready-to-hand fashion” (Star and Ru-
hleder 1996: 114).
This tension between the overall (global) and the multiple and di-
verse localities is, therefore, seen as constitutive of an infrastructure.
When transposing Star and Ruhleder’s relational view into our context
of the digital public sector, we can say that the local is represented by
citizens with different abilities, interests, and resources in terms of the
digital welfare system, while the global consists of the standards, data
formats, terminologies, nomenclatures, protocols, and so on. Therefore,
let us define the goal of an inclusive infrastructure as that which occurs
when a human life is supported by the digital welfare system in a natural, ready-
to-hand fashion. That is, when the local–global tension has been resolved.

Information infrastructures have histories

The notion of installed base is a central term in the information infrastruc-
ture research stream. By reminding us that infrastructures have histories,
it also reminds us to employ a longitudinal temporal perspective in the
study of infrastructures. Both natural ecosystems and most information

116 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
infrastructures evolve over the long term, gradually accumulating vari-
ous new components (when new systems/services are developed) and
shedding other components (when old systems are discontinued). For in-
stance, the Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration (mentioned
above) still runs COBOL-based systems developed during the 1970s, in
parallel with systems developed at various points in time since then. In
2018, its oldest system, dating back to 1967, was “retired”. Old technol-
ogies may survive for a long time if they get deeply embedded in the in-
frastructure.
Such gradual growth results in complex system landscapes, wherein
individual systems may be connected to the pre-existing ones through
ad-hoc integrations. This results in a complex web of relations; in other
words, each system is deeply embedded, with multiple connections to
other systems and work practices.
Such embedding is not only relevant for legacy IT systems. It also ap-
ples to conventions and embodied practices. Let us consider a concrete
example of how technological standards and social practices interact
to create the embedding that gives the installed base its power to re-
sist change. Our computers still operate with the QWERTY keyboard
(named after the first letters on the top-left side), inherited from the
first manual typewriters (patented in 1878), and designed to minimize
the risk of typewriter arms getting entangled in each other when sales
clerks wrote quickly “typewriter” with just the upper row of keys as a
sales gimmick (David 1985). Tangling has not been a practical problem
for over half a century, and other keyboard layouts have been devel-
oped that allow for quicker typing (e.g. the Dvorak keyboard). However,
the path dependency and switching costs associated with the “installed
base” has ensured that the QWERTY layout has maintained its dom-
inance, through a combination of people’s psychomotor habits and
embodied skills, in combination with the billions of already existing
keyboards encountered when using computers. Thus, we experience
too high switching costs and remain locked-in to one specific layout
(Arthur 1994). For various reasons, we can find such old components,
sometimes from earlier, decommissioned technologies (or “ruins”),
which are still foundational components in the later “layers” of infra-
structures built upon them.

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 117
 Infrastructures as underground

The notion of infrastructure draws our attention to the “underground”

(infrastructure literally means “under-structure”24). Our societies tend to
bury and hide many infrastructural connections: sewers and optical fib-
ers run underground, plumbing and electrical wires are hidden within
buildings’ walls. Other infrastructural components, such as power trans-
mission towers and highways, are highly visible, but tend to become
naturalized and no longer seen; they fade into the background. Digital
infrastructures also have a host of material components, servers, commu-
nication networks, and power supplies, which are rarely the focus of our
attention. It is a general quality of infrastructures that for the ordinary
service user they merely run quietly in the background, and only impinge
on our awareness when something goes wrong.
Information infrastructure is also hidden in other ways. Infrastruc-
ture silently embeds a lot of choices and decisions that could have politi-
cal implications – for instance, those related to communication patterns
(among whom, and in which directions can information flow) and for-
mats (what kind of information, using which terminology). Its architec-
ture dictates the information it gathers (what it can see and capture) and
who has access to this information. These “political” and/or “regulatory”
aspects are often embedded in the technical design. As such, they are not
always open for discussion among the users of the infrastructure, and
require investigators to apply deliberate strategies in order to “see” them
(Star 1999; 2002).

Digital identification as infrastructure

The infrastructure lens comes with a reminder that these large, socio-
technical ensembles are fundamentally relational; they are embedded in
extended webs of relations, and are often hidden and taken for granted.

24. An interesting story of the word’s etymology and usage: https://hakpaksak.

wordpress.com/2008/09/22/the-etymology-of-infrastructure-and-the-infra-
structure-of-the-internet/

118 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
In the following section, we examine digital identity infrastructures, seek-
ing to highlight how they work as infrastructure for the digital welfare
state. They serve as access points for almost all self-service solutions, and
are also, as we will see, “pain points” in the context of digital exclusion.
For a long time, state authorities have sought to ascertain the iden-
tity of their citizens, and so maintain population registries, crucial to
running the state, that collect data on key life events such as births and
deaths. Historically, the state used its knowledge of its citizens to draft
soldiers for its military forces and for taxing the population; later, it also
became central for the provisioning of public services such as education
and healthcare. While some digital public services may be openly availa-
ble to all, many services are also specific to groups – for instance, only the
inhabitants of a municipality can apply for its childcare services. Public
services may also be available only to specific people, based on a decision
to allocate resources according to medical diagnosis or need for support;
therefore, it is often necessary to ascertain the identity of a citizen who
seeks to use the service. The service provider needs to check whether the
person is entitled to the service, and also which particular needs should
be met and which preferences are recorded (if any).
Digital identification consists of a) claiming an identity (which, in the
context of public services, is usually the citizen’s full official name as it is
registered in the population registry); b) authenticating oneself (proving
that one has the identity that is claimed, e.g. by providing a password,
token, or biometric evidence); and c) being authorized (where the system
checks and verifies that this user or citizen has the right to access these
services or resources).
These official digital identities are rather different from just a user
name and password (or other forms of identification, such as biometric),
which is the more general form of identification used online. The digital
identity infrastructures connect to larger institutional domains within
the nation states, as the digital identity entitles a physical person (or a
business) to have a legally valid digital signature. Within Europe, this is
regulated by eIDAS (Electronic Identification and Trust Services Regula-
tion), which enables the use of national electronic identification schemes
(eIDs) across national borders within the European Union. In the US
domain, the ESIGN Act (Electronic Signatures in Global and National

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 119
Commerce Act) at the federal level, and the UETA (Uniform Electronic
Transactions Act) perform the same function.
Norway, Sweden and Denmark all have digital identity infrastruc-
tures that allow citizens to access digital services, authenticate them-
selves, and provide digital signatures to both public and private digital
services. In all three countries, the financial sector has been an important
contributor to shaping official digital identity infrastructures. The banks
were early movers in offering the population online banking services that
required secure identification, and built a strong installed base that pub-
lic authorities found value in reusing for broader/civic purposes.25 These
infrastructures are Public Key Infrastructures (PKI), and support both
authentication and digital signatures.
In Denmark, the MitID (MyID), previously NemID, is the main solu-
tion, owned jointly by the public and the financial sector. To get a MitID,
a person needs a unique identifier (the Civil Personal Registration or CPR
number) and be above 13 years of age. In Norway, citizens can choose
between several solutions, all of which are available via the public ID-por-
tal. One publicly owned solution, MinID, has a lower security level than
the other services, which are BankID, Buypass, and Commfides (the two
latter being private solutions with relatively small usage). The most used
is BankID, which was developed jointly by the banking sector, and it is
the banks that issue BankID to customers. To get a BankID, a person
needs to be 13 years old (for some banks, the age limit is 15) and have a
Norwegian social security number. In Sweden, there are currently three
e-identification systems: BankID (owned and issued by banks, and by far
the largest system), Freja eID Plus (owned by Freja eID Group AB), and
AB Svenska Pass (issued by the Swedish Tax Agency). All three e-identi-
fication systems likewise require the applicant to have a social security
number. In Finland, similarly to Norway, there is both a public e-ID and
solutions from the banks, all of which can be used in authentication.

25. See, e.g. a description of the evolution of the Norwegian BankID solution in Ea-
ton et al. (2014).

120 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 How digital identification can create exclusion

The emphasis on the relational quality of infrastructure incites us to ask:

who is connected and in what way? Which categories are employed to
organize the collective, and which standards work to discipline it? Which
boundaries are drawn, and whose interests do they represent? It is par-
ticularly relevant to ask such questions, as several solutions for digital
identities emerge not from the public, but the private sector of finance,
which does not work within the same regulatory frames as the public
sector. While the public sector is obliged, among other things, to offer
universal services, the financial sector is, rather, required to assess cus-
tomers and their actions critically in order to identify potential criminal
activity, money laundering, and tax evasion. The EU Anti-Money Laun-
dering Directive “aims to combat money laundering and the financing
of terrorism by preventing the financial market from being misused for
these purposes”.26
This implies screening customers who get a bank account and, by
implication, screening who may get a digital identity connected to the
bank account (Chapter 7). Banks can refuse to provide services to people
without legal capacity (e.g. due to youth or cognitive impairment), and
those with a history of prior misconduct or insufficient documentation,
such as proof of identity. These boundaries, which do not aim to ensure
universal service, are also applied to the digital identity infrastructure. As
not every citizen has legal access to the banks’ digital identity, the latter
infrastructures are fundamentally non-inclusive. On the one hand, there
were reasonable arguments for the public sectors to choose to apply the
already existing and widespread digital infrastructures from the banks,
rather than spend resources on parallel development; on the other, this
can serve as an example of how decisions that serve only the majority will,
in the longer run, lead to challenges and necessitate finding other solu-
tions for those not included. A further consequence is that of establish-
ing private actors as gatekeepers not merely to their own private digital

26. Directive (EU) 2015/849 (4th Anti-Money Laundering Directive, 4AMLD): https://
eur-lex.europa.eu/EN/legal-content/summary/preventing-abuse-of-the-finan-
cial-system-for-money-laundering-and-terrorism-purposes.html

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 121
services, but also the digital welfare system. This is discussed further in
Chapter 7. Evidence of the recognition of this problem is provided by the
ongoing efforts in the EU to decouple digital ID from the finance sector
and provide public digital identification services.

How is exclusion propagated?

An infrastructure perspective also implies taking a longitudinal view and
extended scope. An infrastructure may grow slowly, and be deeply em-
bedded in complex webs of relations that emerge over time. New services
may be layered on top of older services, using functionality that was al-
ready there and the installed base as resources for growth. We discussed
above the non-universal nature of the digital identity infrastructures
provided by the financial sector. What we also need to keep in mind is
that many other services also choose to build on them. For instance, the
highly popular, mobile-based, small-payment solution Vipps in Norway
is based on BankID.27 The Vipps service thus inherits the same “perime-
ter of exclusion” as the BankID.
Vipps is a preferred option for many small payments, such as bus tick-
ets, purchases from stalls in fairs, and sports events. When these services
use these digital payment solutions, it means that they accommodate
only a subset of the possible customers. In situations when cash or card
payment on the bus is discontinued in favor of payment via app or Vipps,
travelers who live remotely struggle, as they cannot easily access the com-
pany’s sales points to purchase physical tickets. The effect is a propagation
of exclusion, from a domain in which the non-universal boundaries may be
justified (financial sector transactions) to other everyday domains where
these boundaries are not justifiable. Most would agree that the perime-
ters of exclusion for access to bus transport or purchasing a coffee from a
market stall need not be as strict as those for financial transactions. How-
ever, the un-acknowledged propagation or inheritance of such limitations
causes unintended and unnecessary digital exclusion.

27. Sweden has Swish.

122 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 Destroying the web of connections

An infrastructure perspective helps us see that the web of connections

in the digital ecology contains myriad technical and social links. We
saw above that the small payments solution Vipps was also connected
to, and limited by, European legal aspects. While all payment solutions,
including cash, are somehow connected to a national, and ultimately
international financial system, we rarely consider that these infrastruc-
tures will impact small, everyday actions. There are also other types of
consequences in cases where individual digital services are linked to an
infrastructure. To use a metaphor, we could say that an infrastructure de-
velops roots in the socio-technical world in which it lives. Imagine that we
have a garden and wish to move a young tree or a little bush. We try to dig
carefully around its roots, to keep the whole root system as intact as pos-
sible so as not to damage it. While we may be able to preserve the bigger
roots, we may discover additional, tiny white filament roots that have re-
mained. They break as we lift the plant out of the ground, but hopefully
the plant still has enough of its root system intact to survive. This image
emphasizes a situation of disruption and change in which the roots (the
connections) are at risk of breaking. If a digital service or infrastructure is
changed, for instance when a new version is launched, this can be likened
to a situation of uprooting. There are connections, roots both large and
small, that may break. As we argued initially, digital systems are intercon-
nected in myriad known (and sometimes unknown) ways. Often, we will
not have expected the problems caused by an upgrade or change, and it
is only after the fact that we discover all the connections that have grown
around the system.
Let us consider one example of how the underground connections
may get destroyed. It demonstrates how a tiny root that had grown and
become useful to a particular user group broke as the infrastructure
changed, leaving the users worse off.
Denmark has transitioned over from its earlier NemID infrastructure
to the new MitID infrastructure. Both the earlier NemID and the current
MitID require that a one-time code be entered in order to proceed with
the login. Previously, with NemID, citizens were prompted to pick a code
from the physical card they had been given. With MitID, citizens get to

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 123
choose between a smartphone app (the primary option), a code-genera-
tor pendant, a chip, or a code reader (meant for blind people, which reads
the code aloud) (see Figure 2).
To assist blind people who also have hearing impairment, but who
have partial hearing if they use a hearing device, a solution called Voice
Response was developed to work with the previous NemID. When Ne-
mID requested a code, they would use the Voice Responder, which called
them (on their own phone), and a computer voice would recite the code
that should be entered. This was convenient, because deaf-blind people
would typically have either a streamer or their hearing aids directly con-
nected to their phone via a Bluetooth connection.

FIGURE 4. Different options for generating a MitID login, including the device
for reading out codes that does not have Bluetooth, but only a jack plug to
connect a hearing device. Drawing by Esther Vinther Ringsmose.

With the transition from NemID to MitID, this setup no longer worked.
People were given a “code reciter” (kodeoplæser), which reads aloud the
code. However, users experienced several problems with this, and consid-
ered it a step back. While earlier they could use the digital service online,
they now always need to have the physical device to hand as well. In addi-
tion, the new device did not generate good quality audio, nor did it have
a Bluetooth connection, only a jack plug socket, which made connecting
their hearing device a hassle.
We do not know how this MitID code reciter was selected, or why a
Bluetooth-enabled version was not chosen. We do not know if it was due

124 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
to a lack of awareness of this group’s needs and preferences, or if it was
based on economic cost considerations related to Bluetooth’s energy us-
age, battery drain, and thus more frequent replacement costs. Still, this
serves to exemplify the existence and importance of “small” connections,
and the consequences when these unseen or unheeded connections get
broken. This is also an example of why it is worthwhile to consult the
various user groups in advance of technical changes, so as to not destroy
such connections.

Interconnections across infrastructures

The eID relates to government and privately owned systems and data-
bases, which include the underlying population register, but also the
various physical manifestations of identity through, for example, birth
certificates, drivers’ licenses, passports, and more.
This connection may require citizens to produce a physical artefact,
such as a passport, to get access to digital services. This became an issue
along with the introduction of the European Union’s Payment Service
Directive (PSD2),28 which demanded strong customer authentication
from the banks and other providers of payment services. In practice, this
requirement for stronger authentication increased the barriers to online
shopping (Forbrukerrådet, 2023), and also meant the banks were required
to verify the identity of their customers, and to close their accounts if
their identity could not be verified. in practice, proving their identify vis à
vis the banks meant that the customer had to have either a driver’s license
or a valid passport. Not all citizens have passports, and among those who
do, some have expired and are not valid for identification purposes. Dur-
ing the COVID-19 pandemic, which started in 2020 and lasted through
much of 2021, travel was severely restricted, and therefore many citizens
did not bother to renew their passports.
Then, when the EU Payment Directive became operative from 1 Janu-
ary 2021 and the banks conducted their identity verification, citizens who
did not possess either a driver’s license or a valid passport struggled, and

28. https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A32015L2366

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 125
many had to get a passport just for this purpose. Going through these
motions was challenging, especially for older, frail people who could not
travel to a police station. At the same time, there was an unlucky conjunc-
ture of events in Norway: a reduction in the number of police stations
offering passport services, and a significant backlog of renewal demands
because of the pandemic. Together, this resulted in months-long waiting
times to get an appointment at the police stations to order a passport
and have one’s biometric data recorded. After that, there was an addi-
tional wait of several months to get the physical passport, due to supply
challenges from the supplier of the paper used in the physical passports.
As a result, people’s bank accounts were frozen, and they could no longer
withdraw money or pay their bills.

Ownership of infrastructures and commercial providers

The ownership structures behind the dominant eID solutions in the three
countries have been developed together with the banking sector. In the
Norwegian case, the joint effort was coordinated by Bankenes Betalings-
sentral (BBS) and Finans Norge. BBS was established by the banks in 1972
as a joint-stock company to develop financial infrastructural service. In
2010, it merged with its Danish counterpart Pengeinstitutternes Betal-
ingsSystemer (PBS) to become Nets. Thus, behind Nets were 186 Norwe-
gian and Danish banks, but in 2014 Nets was sold to international inves-
tors. Allegedly, the banks were unwilling to invest sufficiently to take the
company further towards the international market. In 2020, Nets merged
with the Italian firm Nexi, and then with SIA to form Nexi Group. In the
process of building it into the dominant actor in electronic payment solu-
tions in Europe, in the fall of 2022 Nexi Group announced its decision
to sell off the Danish eID solutions (NemID and MinID). This was mo-
tivated by the need to focus strongly on payment, and would only take
effect after the transition was finalized and NemID discontinued.
Ownership and control over central societal infrastructure is a larger
theme, so we will just point out very briefly how it can influence dig-
ital exclusion. One of the consequences of this internationalization of
solutions is that it imposes standardization and design choices based
on economy-of-scale considerations. This is probably the reason why,

126 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
when accessing, for example, Norwegian digital public services using the
BankID solution, the guiding text (e.g. “enter one-time code”) appears
sometimes in Norwegian and sometimes in English. To citizens unfamil-
iar with English, this is an additional barrier to successfully using the
solution. The same mix of languages happens in Denmark with MitID.
With complex ownership structures, it is somewhat unclear who is re-
sponsible for resolving the challenges that people experience with, for
instance, eID and other services owned and provided by private actors.
What is the division of responsibility between the banks and the other
service provider who chooses to use BankID as its infrastructure, in sit-
uations where people get stuck? In terms of digital health services, e.g.
videocalls, the service is provided by the GP or the hospital, but it is not
their responsibility to ensure that the underlying infrastructure works,
even though (in Denmark, at least) GPs receive a higher remuneration for
offering digital services compared to a “normal” consultation.
Reliance on remote actors also limits the opportunities to make deci-
sions regarding how to change or develop solutions. Contrary to Norwe-
gian and Danish eID solutions, the Swedish BankID solution is governed
by Finansiell ID-Teknik BID AB, which is owned by various Swedish
banks. The Swedish BankID has been further developed so that the user
can choose language (Swedish or English). and can also choose to employ
touch and face ID for login, a feature that has not been made available
in the Danish and Norwegian versions. The Swedish government (via
PTS – Post- och Telestyrelsen) regularly organizes an innovation contest
directed at reducing exclusion. In 2020, the winner was FrejaID, with a
solution that enabled the sharing of control with, for example, next of
kin. Our point is that such changes are possible when there is in-country
control of the digital identity infrastructures, but might be more difficult
when they are controlled by non-public, international owners.

Conclusion
With this chapter, we sought to highlight that to enhance the possibili-
ties and options for all citizens, decision-makers need to consider accessi-
bility for each single service, including both the usability of the interface,

I n c lu s i v e i n f ra s t r u c t u r e s 127
as well as the multiple services and interdependencies behind the screen.
Digital public services relate to each other through complex webs of re-
lations, which are often hidden and unknown to the immediate user, the
helpers, the local authorities, and even the decision-makers. A relational
view is a core premise in resolving the local-global tension posed by any
infrastructure. The public sector infrastructures are not there for the pur-
pose of satisfying shareholders, for example, or optimizing a production
process. They are put in place to enable interaction and communication
between the state and its citizens, in order to create and support human
well-being. Living up to this purpose is far from trivial, as the needs of
government actors may diverge from those of the citizens. Thus, there are
many ways for an infrastructure to “go wrong”.
Above, we defined an inclusive infrastructure as that which occurs
when human life is supported by the digital welfare system in a natural, ready-to-
hand fashion. That is when local-global tensions have been resolved, and
when the government’s need for a standardized service can be matched
with the citizens’ situations, abilities, and conditions. We argue that the
future design of digital public services should focus more on how they
will handle this unavoidable tension. Can it become a central design and
policy goal to resolve it as best as possible? Could any new development
be accompanied by considerations of how it will affect this tension, and
whether the new functionality works in a ready-to-hand fashion for all
citizens, or only resolves the tensions for some of them? What compen-
satory additions need to be developed and provided to make it work for
everyone?
We know that changes will continue to take place: demographic
changes and migrations, new technological developments, societal trans-
formation. If we attend to the tension between the state and the citizen
now, we will be in a better place to meet the future and its challenges. We
discuss this in greater depth in the following chapter, where we shift our
attention from “under-structures” to the events in front of the screen.

128 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 CHAPTER 7

A learning welfare
service system

If our societies are to avoid citizens being socially excluded from welfare
system services due to digitalization, the adaptability of the welfare sys-
tem as a whole must be considered. The welfare service must become a
“learning system” – one that does not routinize unethical behaviour and
does not accept local breakdowns, just as the system as a whole does not
break down.
In this chapter, we conceptualize the welfare system as a complex,
evolving system in order to examine the question of how it can become
adaptable to changing needs. Using examples from citizen encounters
in two different banks, we discuss the welfare system’s adaptability to
different needs. Banks are interesting in this regard because they are new-
comers to the welfare service system, as will be explained later. What we
hope to show is that to be resilient, welfare systems not only need to deal
with local, emergent failures in operations. They must also learn to learn
from these failures and become better prepared to respond appropriately
to the challenge at hand. Changes in demography and individual needs,
advancements in technology development, public-sector hopes and hype,
data-driven governance, private-sector involvement, changing expecta-
tions and capabilities: all of these elements, and the relations between
them, are changing and shifting over time. A system that is complex,
however, is not necessarily inclusive just because it is host to many differ-
ent elements. In order to make an inclusive system a realizable political
goal, a complex system must be developed that is responsive to the ele-

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 129
ments that are at risk of exclusion. It must be prepared for and responsive
to “failure”, by which we mean the system must cultivate the ability to
listen, repair, and learn. Invisible digital support work is a way in which
failure is monitored and responded to locally. The question is how these
failures can instigate higher-order learning – or, in other words, how ex-
periences of exclusion in state-citizen encounters can start to make a dif-
ference in the spaces where digitalization strategies are developed and
policies made.

Welfare service systems as ecologies

We often use metaphors to explain what digital systems are. Notions like
“infrastructure” and “architecture” evoke ideas of a physical, built envi-
ronment. They compare IT to structures that we can see and touch. As
metaphors, they highlight certain aspects of that which they describe,
and when using them we highlight stability and duration. Another met-
aphor for digital systems is “ecology”. When we speak about digital ecol-
ogies, we highlight other qualities, such as adaptability and relations.
Above, we described the welfare system as consisting of a number of ele-
ments, as well as their relations. In practice, these elements are entangled
and hard to pull apart, especially for citizens and their helpers. Shifting
our view of public-sector digitalization from a matter of a technological
social “wiring” to a dynamic, living system opens up an understanding
wherein inclusion is not about bringing people “up to speed”, but about
meeting them where they are. It also highlights the need to navigate and
survive the complex interplays that shape life within the welfare service
system. A digital ecology perspective considers systems as consisting of
not only technical infrastructures – and the political and administrative
institutions that determine their particulars, acquisition, and imple-
mentation – but also the people involved and their actions. In a digital
ecology as ontology (worldview), citizens are already “in there”, because
they form part of the system as technological participants (Chilvers and
Kearnes 2015). This is not just the case for the digitally literate, but for
all those who are part of digital systems due to their data, personal iden-
tification numbers, and the lists of activities logged in the public systems

130 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
on a daily basis (Cakici 2024). Aspects of them are transformed into dig-
its, but that does not make them into digital citizens. As people navigate
the welfare service systems, they participate in the digital ecology, but on
unequal terms. So how should we speak about and understand digital
inclusion through this notion of the welfare system as a digital ecology?
Exploring the digital welfare system as a dynamic ecology, we now delve
into the concepts of systems and repair, to form a better understanding
of systemic preparedness and resilience as a pathway to an improved ver-
sion of inclusivity politics.

Systems
Key thinkers within digital science and technology studies have for some
time considered information systems as comparable to ecological sys-
tems. The anthology Ecologies of Knowledge: Work and Politics in Science and
Technology (Star 1995) takes an “ecological” view on work and politics,
meaning that the authors refuse social/natural or social/technical di-
chotomies when inventing dialectical modes of analysis. These authors
also seek to undo the common split between the personal/experiential
and the political: “Our world challenges the moral order of science and
technology making – and in turn places us in a complex, often tense
moral position” (Bowker, Timmermans, Clarke and Balka 2015: 14).
Thinking of the welfare service system as a digital ecology builds on
this approach. It challenges the notion of a welfare system as a bounded,
delimited whole into which citizens can be included or excluded. An ecol-
ogy is favorable to certain forms of life and hostile to others – it is a place
where life forms evolve and disappear. In an ecological framework, we can
consider banks a form of life that is a newcomer to the welfare system.
As they have only recently become the gatekeepers of the welfare system
services, they can be considered a new life form in this particular ecology
and, like other forms of life in the system, they may disappear again. Sim-
ilarly, the life form of the digital citizen, who is currently self-servicing,
will perhaps at some point become not-so-digital, and will thus relate
differently to her surroundings. Changes may also happen in politics;
we can expect that new images of the digital citizen will evolve, perhaps

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 131
several different ones: a “European digital citizen”, whose new EU eIDs
will make mobility easier across bureaucracies in the EU; as well as a less
mobile digital citizen, who is confined to the nation state in which he
or she resides. We can take this even further – IT vendors may suddenly
“die”, be bought by foreign companies, or merge and disappear as a life
form in the welfare system. The platforms that public institutions use to
communicate to citizens or among themselves may change (e.g. all the
public-private “dynamics” with respect to social media: TikTok being
banned for public employees, Twitter policies changing, many opting out
of Facebook,1 public authorities communicating on Instagram). Change
is to be expected, and an adaptive response is required from the welfare
system.
Considering the welfare service system as an ecology offers an oppor-
tunity to rethink digital inclusion by learning from life within the system.
Therefore, pursuing digital inclusion means monitoring and supporting
adaptation to people’s needs. The limitations embedded in the concept
“the digital citizen” include the notion of someone who has to get them-
selves up to speed in order to be included – in many ways, an impossible
standard (Chapter 3) that needs to be understood in more processual
terms. Seeing the digital citizen as partial, that is, as bound up in social
relations and with different capabilities in different situations that can
change over time, challenges the foundation of digital citizenship and
the idea that people can solve tasks related to digital service provision
in the same way throughout their lives and in different situations. It un-
derlines that people need to be able to diverge not only from each other,
but also from themselves, in the sense that everyone has different capa-
bilities in different situations and over the course of a lifetime (Thorsen
2021; Winthereik 2024). Conceptualizing public-sector digitalization as
a digital ecology allows us to consider how different forms of life evolve
and survive, are related, and die (Hyysalo and Juntunen 2024). It does not
promote the idea that all practices are equally “good” or that every life
form can or should live, but it highlights the issue that perhaps we can
make more inclusive environments for the forms of life that are already

1. This includes public institutions like NRK in Norway: https://www.nrk.no/ro-

galand/nrk-legg-ned-distriktskontoane-pa-facebook-1.16710550

132 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
here, and be prepared for the fact that this is not a status quo. Thus, if
such forms of life should be supported, it could be because it says so in
the law, meaning that we must find way to do so politically, and not leave
it to the ecology itself.

Repair
Repair and self-repair are important terms if we are to monitor and sup-
port different life forms in a digital ecology more effectively. Bearing in
mind that technical systems are (part of) infrastructures (Chapter 5) and
also have no single center of control from which they can easily be sur-
veilled and managed, systemic preparedness means cultivating awareness
that a system has capacities for reacting to situations that go wrong. To
“ecologize” in this context could then mean to sensitize managers and
decision-makers to the myriad relational ways in which people, technol-
ogies, organizations, and institutions “co-produce” each other (Chapter
4). Inclusivity – in the political sense, a way to avoid exclusion of certain
elements – means accepting and caring for the spaces where uncertainty
reigns. This could, for instance, mean actively seeking out problem situ-
ations experienced by citizens, with the aim of understanding these sit-
uations as opportunities for learning and improving the system. Ecolo-
gizing means taking as a starting point the fact that we do not yet know
what actors and life forms exist, how they engage, their needs and poli-
tics, whether the outcomes of their engagements are “desirable”, and so
on. In practice, the answer to this fundamental uncertainty will often be
repair.
In her book Matters of Care: Speculative ethics in more than human worlds,
Maria Puig de la Bellacasa issues a call to understand the world as un-
finished (2017). She proposes that we do not consider this as a problem,
but as an opportunity to relate differently, in a caring way, or by acknowl-
edging the care provided in various situations that are not “labelled” as
caring (de la Bellacasa 2017).
To exemplify, who would consider a bank a place for nurturing caring
relations? A bank is not a hospital. Nevertheless, anthropologist Jarrett
Zigon, in his book Disappointment, talks about a bank in Montreal that

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 133
considers it part of its mission to contribute to the strategic directions
issued by the city council to include a diverse range of citizens, including
drug-users and homeless people (Zigon 2017). The bank has created a
friendly and welcoming atmosphere in the lobby, which offers free coffee
and a machine that provides clean needles and syringes. In this way, the
bank signals that they understand some of the basic needs and concerns
of a segment of the clients, an otherwise marginalized group of people.
Maybe this is “virtue signaling” or a way of ticking the CSR box in a com-
pany strategy. The rationale does not really matter to the argument here,
which is that for whatever reason the bank has decided to relate differ-
ently, it has changed the routines that excluded a segment of its custom-
ers, and it did so in collaboration with the city council. Public-sector or-
ganizations, too, could choose to relate differently. In Denmark a citizen
service center decided to change its opening hours and have physical ap-
pointments that were not restricted to 10 minutes in response to the sit-
uation that a segment of citizens was excluded from receiving important
help from the authorities due to expectations of how meetings should be
scheduled. The overall point is that such forms of situated response are
also forms of repair that contribute to making the system resilient.
Ecologizing stands in contrast to seeing the world as compartmental-
ized into “social”, “technological”, and “political” boxes. In the context
of a digital(izing) society, ecologizing implies monitoring how actors
who carry out welfare tasks relate to citizens and non-citizens in order
to gain a better grasp of how to repair the breakdowns (e.g. exclusion)
that inevitably occur.2 The field of repair studies has grown out of the
idea that as our societies become increasingly technologically advanced,
we are concomitantly creating a world in need of constant repair (Cohn
2017). In this view, the digitally excluded are not socially disadvantaged
or vulnerable groups for whom societies can find the right solutions
once and for all – for example, through skills training; rather, digital ex-
clusion is the logical consequence when all-encompassing digitalization
is the goal. Steven Jackson speaks of technologically advanced societies

2. Monitoring here is to be understood as a form of listening, as it does not imply a

strict set of monitoring instruments, but a high degree of empathy and flexibil-
ity.

134 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
as broken worlds (Jackson 2019). This perspective is open to the idea that
living with technology equates to living with imperfection – that is, with
things that never perfectly fit how people live or want to live. To Jackson,
a broken world means that relations between people and technologies
are always somewhat mismatched, very rarely is there a perfect fit. Use
requires fixing, workarounds, and mutual adaptation among a host of
different actors. Repair, according to Jackson, is an approach that al-
lows people to have agency. Focusing on repair rather than on achieving
perfection, he states, provides “new insight into the objects and systems
around us (and the work required to keep them live in the world): build-
ings as entities shaped and sustained by maintenance staff, not (just)
architects; mobile phones as the products of fixers, not (just) designers”
(Jackson 2019: 340). With this conceptual baggage, we now turn to our
empirical examples, to better understand how a welfare service system
might learn.

Systemic preparedness – and lack thereof

Banks are newcomers as actors in the public welfare service system. As key
institutions in society, their history is centuries long, but digital self-ser-
vice means they have acquired a new role as welfare service gatekeepers.
Highlighting this transformation, we present two field examples that
encapsulate the nuanced roles banks play: from enforcing regulations
to engaging empathetically with welfare-system clients. The two stories
reflect some recent changes to the welfare system that have come about
as private-sector employees conduct welfare work at street-level. The first
example shows a very regulated and inflexible situation, while the second
raises the possibility of empathy in the encounter between the citizen and
the private stewards of access to welfare services. In their book The Digi-
tal Citizen, Hjelholt and Schou write about the “edges” of digitalization,
by which they mean places that tend to pass under the radar of govern-
ment strategies and technical solutions (Hjelholt and Schou 2017, see
also Hjelholt and Papazu 2021). As private-sector actors, such as banks,
acquire a more prominent role as caretakers of digital citizenship, we may
consider them as new edges in an evolving digital welfare ecology.

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 135
 Shifting perspectives, we now offer first-hand accounts to illumi-
nate the intricate dynamics in play. Katherine Brown and Tabita Nyberg
Hansen share their personal experiences, bringing the theoretical discus-
sions to life with their direct encounters in the field. Katherine Brown
delves into the healthcare access challenges faced by migrants in Norway,
while Tabita Nyberg Hansen contributes insights from her work with
homeless people in Denmark via Projekt Udenfor, an NGO dedicated to
their support.

Bridging Bureaucracy and Corporate Realms

by Katherine S. Brown3
Sitting in the library of a municipality-sponsored Norwegian lan-
guage and culture school for immigrants with a group of five women
from Turkey, the mood was both guarded and curious. A recent immi-
grant myself, I had less experience with the Norwegian public sector than
the women I was about to interview. But armed with my knowledge of
the Norwegian language, my Scandinavian appearance, and my associa-
tion with the university, the introduction I received implied a legitimacy
and expertise in the very thing these women knew so much about.
All of the women in the group were Turkish and had moved to Nor-
way within the last five years as political refugees. None spoke English,
but they had been learning Norwegian since their arrival, and were able
to communicate with few problems, translating for one another when
necessary. They met in the library most days of the week for a study group
as they prepared for a Norwegian language test, often working inde-
pendently, but always with the possibility to work with one of the teach-
ers from the school. It was through this teacher, who taught a course on
Norwegian society that I had just completed, that I was able to join for
these group interviews; in addition to helping with my research, she said
that holding the conversations in Norwegian would be good language
practice for these women.

3. Katherine S. Brown is a PhD candidate at Agder University, Norway. The vignette

is an excerpt from her fieldnotes that she has kindly allowed us to reproduce.

136 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 Though I initially had planned to discuss experiences with digital
health systems in Norway, it quickly became clear that for this group,
interacting with digital health services, and even more importantly, hav-
ing an opinion about those services, relies upon successfully gaining ac-
cess to other areas of the Norwegian public sector. The most important
tool when interacting with the public sector is a digital identifier called
BankID. This is the most secure method of digital identification availa-
ble in Norway, and is the only free option provided by the public sector
to log into certain services, including HelseNorge, the health-service por-
tal which includes vaccination records, serves as an inbox for personal
messages relating to health, and more. Because of the high security level
associated with the BankID system, there are a number of requirements
a person must fulfill before being granted access to the service. These
requirements vary by bank, leaving the financial institutions in charge
of determining whether or not people have access to services ranging
from online banking to purchasing bus tickets to interacting with health
authorities. Usually, the requirements include presenting a passport or
other photo ID, such as a Norwegian bank card or driver’s license, and
proof of residency. The BankID is also subject to an age limit (usually
13 or 15, depending on the bank). In practice, this means that refugees
who arrive in the country and are waiting for asylum are unable to use
BankID services. Those without passports must find a bank willing to
accept whatever ID they are able to provide.
The experiences of the women in the library were no different. One
recounted her first attempt to obtain BankID after being granted ref-
ugee status and having acquired all the appropriate paperwork. Sitting
in the bank with her husband, she told me it was difficult to communi-
cate with the employee. Neither she nor her husband spoke English, and
their Norwegian was extremely limited at the time. However, they had
waited for a long time to be able to open their bank accounts and were
looking forward to the freedom it would allow them: to get proper jobs
with salaries paid directly to their accounts, to begin building a new life
in Norway. Their migration path allowed them to arrive in Norway in a
relatively planned fashion: they had their Turkish passports with them,
and their asylum case was already settled. However, upon meeting with
the bank employee to open their account, they were told they would not

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 137
be allowed to open an account that included BankID. The reasoning
for this had nothing to do with the documentation they presented. The
bank employee questioned what they “would do” with BankID, citing a
security concern related to their (lack of) linguistic ability in both English
and Norwegian.
Because they were denied access to the digital BankID service, the so-
cial exclusion the couple faced from being unable to understand written
or spoken Norwegian was amplified. Without BankID, they could not
use many basic services, including, among other things, accessing their
own health records and making online purchases. The onus of solving
this problem was on the newcomers, who had to independently find a
bank that would accept their application for BankID. Though all of the
women in this group had experienced difficulties obtaining BankID,
none of them had received assistance in accessing it. The exclusion was
caused neither by a physical inability to use digital tools nor by a lack of
digital competency – had they had access to BankID, they would have
been able to complete these tasks with little to no trouble. However, be-
cause these services have come to rely on digital access to a single tool
that is endorsed by the public sector and administered by the private sec-
tor, the perception of a private-sector employee that the individuals did
not fit in led to magnified misfitting, with repercussions far beyond (lack
of) access to mobile banking.
By the time I spoke with the couple, their access problems had been re-
solved through help from their network. The woman recounted the story
to me in Norwegian and told me that once the hurdle with BankID had
been addressed, she had not encountered significant problems accessing
or using Norway’s digital public sector. Others in the room echoed this
sentiment, telling me of their own challenges accessing public-sector ser-
vices as they transitioned from life in Turkey to life in Norway. Most of
these had been resolved after they were granted access to BankID, but
getting the BankID depended on receiving support from an informal
network, and not from the public authorities.
In the above, Katherine Brown describes an interaction between mi-
grants and a bank official, and the social and administrative context of
this encounter. The bank employee is in a position to grant migrants who
are legally in the country full bureaucratic integration, but due to strict

138 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
rules that govern the banks, the migrants had to leave without the eID.
Although the migrants are in the country legally and, in this case, were
in possession of the correct documents entitling them to medical and
other public-sector benefits, they are reliant on the discretion of individ-
ual street-level employees of highly regulated private organizations.
Not being able to get the BankID has immediate consequences for
those involved, who spend time and resources to acquire something they
are legally required to receive, but whose efforts leave no ripple on the
water, so to speak. With the conceptual framework presented here, we
can speak of a breakdown in a situation where access to basic welfare
services depends on both public and private actors. This mix can be diffi-
cult for citizens and not-yet citizens to navigate – not due to their digital
skills, but because accountability in a bank differs from accountability
in a public bureaucracy. Banks, as well as state authorities, have formal
procedures to ensure that they live up to certain rules, and have ways of
enforcing them. One may even say that, with regard to the bureaucracy,
it can be hard to distinguish where the public sector ends and the pri-
vate sector begins. It is a multi-stakeholder situation that gets resolved
through the involvement of informal networks. Often composed of com-
munity groups, NGOs, and informal social circles, these information
networks step in to provide crucial support, helping individuals navigate
the complexities of accessing essential services when formal systems fall
short. A manager at a Danish citizen service center explained that such
centers need to respond to citizens’ needs in a way that banks do not:
“Banks are private companies that can reject clients that they don’t want.
They consider citizens as customers. We can’t do that and so the task is
ours even if it is their systems that fail.”4 The service exclusion that lack
of access to BankID instigates, even if it is temporary, can cause citizens
to fall between stools.
The banks must comply with both anti-discrimination laws and in-
creasingly tight regulations around issues like money laundering, which
have high thresholds for security and identity assurance. With little guid-

4. The anonymous manager expressed his frustration with the difference in re-
sponsibilities at the Annual Meeting for Citizen Center Managers during a Q&A,
April 25, 2023.

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 139
ance for banks on how to deal with these contradictory rules, whether
an immigrant receives BankID ends up becoming a somewhat arbitrary
decision – one that is, at best, left to individual bank policy, and at worst,
to the judgment of individual employees. A concern here is that on a sys-
temic level there is no learning, and repair is left to informal helpers.

The Impact of Empathy

Our second example illustrates another situation in need of repair,
namely engaging with frontline workers in the private sector to get access
to public welfare services for citizens who lack an address. Project Out-
side (Projekt Udenfor)5 is a Danish NGO working with homeless peo-
ple. The outreach workers are often asked to help with administrative
matters. Below, one of the long-term employees, Tabita Nyberg Hansen,
shares her experiences of accompanying a homeless citizen to the bank:6
Well, luckily there still are employees, both at the bank and in the citi-
zen service centers [Tabita is referring to the Danish strategy of digitaliz-
ing contact points between citizen and officials, initiated in 2013 during
the first digitalization wave]. And we certainly have good experiences with
them. But another part of our reality is that when we are standing at the
cashier with our users, they get very different treatment from when they
are standing there on their own. They are often considered by the bankers
to be more difficult as citizens or clients. There are those who can explain
in short, precise terms what they need… [but] maybe they don’t know
how to phrase it or they don’t know the correct words or concepts. Some-
times their frustration with MitID is so great that they cannot really hide
it, and their tone of voice will give them away. Or they don’t talk about
the problem on the mobile phone and get help with something else, be-

5. https://udenfor.dk/
6. The description is a transcript from a sound recording of a presentation at the
Technical University of Denmark on November 15, 2023. It was recorded by
Anders Kjærulff, transcribed by Katrine K. Pedersen and translated by Brit Ross
Winthereik, and is reproduced with consent.

140 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
cause they don’t know how to describe it or simply want to get out of a
situation that is experienced as extremely stressful.
So where digitalization is smart for some citizens, who can avoid the
constraints posed by time and place by using self-service, this is not the
case for a homeless person who has a lot of time and for whom the physi-
cal encounter is invaluable and of the utmost importance. This is why we
consider that there is a need for time, peace, and quiet in such encoun-
ters. It can be necessary to ask actively about problems, prompt the per-
son, and assure them that you want to help. Sometimes that can mean
helping them to embark on the digital journey, but conversation and
human contact may also reveal that they have a different kind of need.
Maybe the person in front of you has challenges of one kind or another
that need to be handled before they can be guided further.
Sadly, such people will often be told that they need to book another
time, as the system can only handle one problem at a time – so a bit of flex-
ibility in this kind of case would be valuable. We ran an IT project some
years ago where we learned that a citizen service center at Amager [located
in central Copenhagen] had hired someone to carry out relational work.
This employee was available when a digitally vulnerable citizen, which
could be anyone, stepped through the door, and time and a caring ap-
proach were needed. I have often thought that this could inspire others,
that way of thinking about citizen service plus some additional care.
Tabita’s description emphasizes the need for respectful encounters.
NGOs can work as mediators in difficult encounters and provide the re-
pair needed, perhaps through careful de-escalation of the situation (no
doubt a resource-demanding workaround). They may also help represent
this situation if we are to bring local problem-solving and breakdowns
to the attention of planners and decision-makers. She points out that
homeless citizens experience discrimination if they do not have an out-
reach worker by their side. She suggests that a solution can be found
through “reaching out and being curious” about the person’s situation
beyond the single encounter: what else are they struggling with? Both
technical and cognitive challenges can hinder successful task comple-
tion. We regard this as an important and relevant message for public,
street-level bureaucrats, as well as private employees acting as gatekeepers
of welfare state services.

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 141
 To return to Jackson’s broken worlds perspective, Tabita points out
that in order to improve the social meeting and create better conditions
for a fruitful process, allowing more time for certain clients is often the
solution. She continues:

I fully understand that not everyone can go to the streets and ask peo-
ple about their needs, but outreach can also mean plain and simply
being open and curious with respect to the person in front of you.
One should consider that information, uncertainties, doubts and
questions must sometimes be teased out of people. Not until a person
feels safe will it happen, and this is where time is important.

The question is whether and how the welfare service system can learn
to depend less on individuals’ motivation to fix a situation and become
more prone to systemic repair.

From problem-solving to systemic learning

In his study of Tokyo’s railway system, Michael Fisch describes the large
number of suicides on the tracks as disrupting commuter life in the city
(Fisch 2013). Transportation in Tokyo takes place in a high-tension zone.
The train system connects 25 million people, and therefore has to func-
tion, despite a severe overload of its capacity. Commuters have become
used to waiting in overfilled trains, due to what are referred to as “hu-
man body accidents”. Fisch is concerned with how the railway company’s
computer networks “think” about the disruption caused by a body on
the tracks, and centers his argument on the concept of emergence (Fisch
2013: 321). He criticizes certain uses of the term because he considers it
romanticizes adaptive systems, which are perhaps good at surviving but
not empathic or accountable to the “surplus” they produce. In the case
of Tokyo’s railway system, this surplus is the normalization of frequent
suicides.
The text is enlightening when it comes to understanding how an
overburdened system can function at all. Compared to the eID infra-
structures, which include the banking system, there is a qualitative

142 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
difference, which we discuss further in Chapter 8. For now, it is suf-
ficient to mention Fisch’s argument that a shift has occurred in the
focus of the railway operators. In parallel with the system being increas-
ingly overburdened, the operators went from monitoring its precision
to monitoring what Fisch calls “the margin of indeterminacy” (Fisch
2013). Specifically, this means that the train operators became less con-
cerned with trains running precisely on time, and instead focused on
ensuring that the trains were running at all, to avoid a collapse of the
commuter system.
Consider the two empirical vignettes once more. In the first we see “a
system operator” (the banker) focusing on “maintaining precision”. In
the second, we see an operator who maintains continuity in the system
through collaboration with the homeless person and the helper. There is
no breakdown (exclusion), due to a focus on keeping open the space and
time of the encounter between citizen, helper, and bank-as-public-au-
thority. This is an example of how a system can adapt to a disruption
by monitoring the margin of indeterminacy, rather than managing the
maintenance of precision.
The examples from Norway and Denmark underscore the imperative
for digitalized welfare systems to evolve from merely addressing imme-
diate issues (solving tasks) to fostering a culture of continuous learning
and systemic improvements in ways that are both respectful towards di-
verse needs and not continuously “forgotten”. Reading Fisch, it is im-
portant not to romanticize systems that are characterized by distributed
autonomy. If, in the case of Tokyo’s railways, suicides are empirical ev-
idence of an emergent system, then one should be careful not to stop
there and see emergence as a “good” in and by itself, but rather look into
the political causes of these events.7 In his example, the problem is not a
lack of feedback. Information is sent back to the railway operators, but
the information has been normalized – suicides have become part of the
normal running of the system.

7. For a similar argument on working with complexity, see Ang, I. (2011) “Nav-
igating complexity: From cultural critique to cultural intelligence”. Contin-
uum, 25(6), 779-794.

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 143
 In digitalized welfare systems, on the other hand, lack of feedback is
a huge problem. Some sort of feedback is required for learning and sys-
temic improvement to take place. On the concrete level, one could, for
instance, imagine a service-provider setting up a systematic collection of
aborted login attempts to exemplify a general preoccupation with failure
(Weick and Sutcliffe 2001). By monitoring failed logins, the number of
times people have given up, repeated attempts to fill in a form, and so
on, the service provider could respond by redesigning the digital service
to address where failures are likely to happen and/or through resourcing
its help function. So instead of measuring and monitoring failures a long
time after they happened, the idea would be to set up systematic listen-
ing to “sound” information relating to breakdowns. Moreover, the sys-
tem’s overall preparedness should be monitored with respect to how well
it “thinks” the feedback – whether it normalizes the data and expands
the margin of uncertainty, or reacts to the content of the information. If
the digital struggle that citizens experience is normalized and not acted
upon, exclusionary dynamics will follow, and resilience will be compro-
mised.
Considering feedback this way differs from most management and
governance scholarship, which mostly systematizes learning into a learn-
ing circle that does not differentiate the information, but rather focuses
on the action. Plan – do – check – act. The learning circle is based on
the collection and sharing of information about operations to detect and
correct unintended events. While this is great in a PowerPoint or a strat-
egy, the problem with such an approach is, firstly, that breakdowns are
considered anomalies. Secondly, the efficiency of the model will be deter-
mined by what can realistically perform as “data”, and there will be a ten-
dency to only consider certain things as such. The problem with respect
to digital exclusion is that much of what is happening on the frontline
between state and private actors does not qualify as “data” that can be
collected, monitored, and acted upon at scale.
Organization scholars have also offered conceptual resources for
thinking about systemic preparedness that involves acknowledging the
presence of uncertainty, in order to manage the unexpected more effec-
tively. Carl Weick, for example, advises managers that they should adopt
a “mindful” style of managing. In Weick’s words, this means learning to

144 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
heighten one’s sensitivity to operations as much as to strategy, and cre-
ating an error-friendly learning culture (Weick and Sutcliffe 2001: 161).
His suggestion is, “Seek out bad news… when someone brings bad news
to your attention say: Really? Tell me more. What do you think we should
do about it? Thanks for bringing this to my attention” (ibid.: 164). This
is exemplary in relation to creating situations that are empathic and re-
sponsible vis à vis the citizen, but it is difficult to maintain such a hu-
manizing attitude when several digital access points come between the
citizen and the public-sector official. Navigating the complexities of a
digitalized public-sector ecology, with its extensive legislative and secu-
rity frameworks, challenges empathy and mindful approaches. Yet shed-
ding light on how feedback is incorporated into complex systems may
offer options for developing empathic and adaptive strategies to counter
digital exclusion.

Installing agency
Citizens and their digital helpers are increasingly considered partici-
pants in making the welfare services perform well, but they do not have
much agency in the unexpected events that are bound to happen in dig-
italized service systems. Citizens contribute data and take care of their
affairs online in order to save resources elsewhere, but could they also
contribute jointly with frontline personnel in terms of pointing out
flaws and suboptimal processes in the system, in order to “manage the
unexpected”?
At the moment, many issues are solved by using informal helpers.
They are the ones who fix the problems – or in extreme cases, call the
mayor or the press. Let us return to the two empirical vignettes. Maybe,
ideally, the banks should not handle public eIDs (one of the reasons
the EU is working to replace current national eIDs with publicly owned
schemes), meaning that problems of exclusion and a difficult interface
with the banks or the citizen service centers might not occur in the ways
described. Here, we see a conflict of different, yet legitimate, concerns.
The banks are required to uphold general security directives (avoid white-
washing and criminal activity), which is also an important task for soci-

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 145
ety. To make an assessment of a citizen as “risky” is an obligation society
asks of them. Less clearly defined is their responsibility to make sure that
people who are obliged to make use of basic welfare services are able to
access them. This is where we see that, in relation to people obtaining
eIDs and gaining access to welfare, the distribution to informal networks
of responsibility therefore depends on whether such networks are availa-
ble. But accounting for and reacting to such informal responsibilities is
crucial for digital inclusion.
Our aim here, however, is not to discuss what private actors should
or should not be asked to do. The point is that in a digital ecology there
must be possibilities for repair during the encounter and soon after – and
not just after a complaint has been filed, responding to which can take
years. This is only going to happen if institutional representatives are able
to listen to people’s experiences in their own language, and have the re-
sponsibility to repair situations that have gone awry. Thus, systemic pre-
paredness is a two-tiered process that involves situated problem-solving
and qualitative feedback to ensure learning in the system overall, which
can lead to better resourcing.
Carreras and Finken describe how the librarians at a Danish library
were attentive to the importance of developing feedback loops for knowl-
edge exchange – e.g. with IT providers about issues of functionality and
access. The feedback was based on encounters with citizens. Below, one of
the librarians explains that it was very difficult to establish a connection
to the vendors and make feedback:

Giving feedback is a very opaque process. Especially when it comes to

who to contact, you can feel like a drop in the ocean. For example, at
a public digitalization conference I approached an IT consulting firm
that designed a digital solution for immigrants. I asked them, “May
I give you some feedback on your solution, because it works really
poorly?” And of course, they said “Yes!” and they seemed interested. I
told them that the solution was only available in Danish, but users of
this service speak many other languages. I also told them that it was
impossible to log out. When I helped different citizens, it was difficult
to help more than one person on the same computer… And then I

146 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 wrote a private message to one of them again on LinkedIn a year later,
but I have not heard back from them.
(Carreras and Finken 2022: 51).

The librarian was committed to hosting and improving a system that

worked sub-optimally for the users. She wanted to mend the situation
and make the system learn, and she did so by initiating a process in which
failure would be taken seriously right away.

Conclusion
If we are to think about digitalization through the concept of repair and
learning to repair, we must first get rid of the image of a citizen as an illit-
erate user or a member of a digital underclass, who lacks basic capacities
and skills. Socially sustainable digital systems will not be realized by the
bringing-up-to-speed of the citizen, but by installing a sense of prepared-
ness in the system overall. Institutions must not consider people’s expe-
riences of problems as a lack of competence, but as illustrative evidence
of their situation. How best to support them must become information
leading to systemic learning and political change.
Private actors have always been key to IT development and imple-
mentation in the public sector. What is new, however, is that access to
services and critical welfare infrastructures depends on employees in pri-
vate companies. There are many ways in which private companies are al-
ready involved in public-sector digitalization, but the addition of bankers
to street-level service delivery adds a new interface for the citizen as s/
he seeks access to welfare services. The banks are “edge actors”, but also
powerful with respect to how welfare is and can be provided. However,
banks and other private vendors cannot be held accountable for access
troubles in the same way as public authorities, which are governed by the
law. It is, therefore, pertinent to consider how to future-proof these new
ecologies with private street-level bureaucrats so as to avoid exclusion.
To operationalize a broken world’s perspective of digital inclusion,
a complex system must be navigated by welfare organizations, deci-
sion-makers, planners, frontline workers, and citizens. To respond to

A l e ar n i n g w e l far e s e r v i c e s y s t e m 147
failure in critical public services, we suggest considering two issues: 1)
empathy and attunement to the person (not just the task) during the
encounter; and 2) monitoring people’s experiences of exclusion during
the encounter, to collect information that allows the system to become
smarter. In the next and final chapter, we return to the concept of the
partially digital citizen and consider how to design for inclusivity.

148 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 CHAPTER 8

Designing for inclusivity

A citizen service center in a Danish municipality has invested in a ma-

chine to help with passport applications. The machine, which is the size
of a refrigerator, is similar to a digital photo booth. This rather costly
purchase was supposed to support citizen service center employees in
issuing new passports more efficiently, but a short while after the acqui-
sition, the machine was taken out of use. It now stands in a corner as a re-
minder of a failed promise to better serve the employees – and ultimately,
the citizens. It turned out that the machine could not take passport
photos of people who squint. The problem was that from the machine’s
perspective, quite a lot of people did. As the machine refused to take pic-
tures of almost anybody (there are more squints in the population than a
human eye can detect), working around this oversensitive piece of equip-
ment became a task to be carried out by the employees. Trying to make
the machine work, then working around it, disrupted their routines, so
the municipality took it out of operation and put it in a corner. Instead,
when issuing a passport, employees were required to take photos using
a smartphone and then transfer the picture to the municipal computer.
Unlike the photo machine, the phone did not discriminate – but there
were GDPR issues, of course. The citizen service center imagines these
issues will be solved over time.
The vignette provides an example of the digital exclusion that happens
when, without explanation, a person or a collective is unable to continue
with a task due to a failure in the digital technology; in this case, moving
on with the task requires a citizen service center employee to work around
the inscriptions in the technology. If we take this mundane example one

D e s i g n i n g fo r i n c lu s i v i t y 149
step further, it can stand in for a digitalized welfare service system as a
doomsday scenario – expensive technology is purchased to replace human
labor, but ends up adding tasks to the human workload, tasks that are not
accounted for, add no value, compromise the citizen’s privacy, and make
frontline workers break the law. This sounds hyper-critical, and yet exam-
ples like the above are widespread in digitalized welfare societies.
Here, at the end of the book, what stands out are a couple of imper-
atives: 1) to connect political-strategic discourse (world championship
logic) and experiences of digitalization on the ground, and 2) to ensure
better support for the informal digital helpers – the relatives, profession-
als, volunteers, and frontline personnel – who take care of digital inclu-
sion and shoulder both risks and costs. We have contributed, we hope, to
a better understanding of the nature of digital support work, as well as
the constraints that currently hinder systematic backing for it.
Writing this book has been the outcome of an attempt to take an un-
biased look at the complicated entanglements of digital services and infra-
structures, citizens and their helpers, frontline workers of the welfare state,
values and politics. We have qualified our points about digital citizenship
and the nature of the support work, both empirically and theoretically,
in the hope that the concepts we present will inspire managers and deci-
sion-makers in the public sector. We believe these concepts – “partially dig-
ital citizen”, “informal digital support”, “repair work”, “digital ecology”,
“systemic preparedness”, “inclusive infrastructures”, and “learning welfare
service systems” – can add more nuance to the language we use when de-
bating the pros and cons of digitalization. However, while new language is
important, it will not be sufficient to drive the development of our present
digital welfare service systems in a more people-centered direction. There-
fore, in this concluding chapter, we propose a framework for digital inclu-
sion, a tool for raising awareness, to be used in (political and management)
discussions about how to move on. We raise a number of questions, some
of a “practical” nature, others more value-oriented, which can be used by
organizations that would like to do inclusion. We draw on research to offer
ideas for inclusive methods. In conclusion, we sum up our ideas as a way of
heading toward people-centered digitalization. Social sustainability must
be possible for digital technologies, not least when these technologies
serve as the critical infrastructure of our welfare societies.

150 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 The problem of participation
Scandinavia is the home of the participatory design (PD) tradition, which
argues that design processes will lead to better technology outcomes if they
include end-users (Greenbaum and Kyng 1991). Thus, the underlying value
of the PD tradition can be summarized as being based on the idea that
end-users should not just “have a voice” in the making of the technologies,
but directly impact technologies that shape organizations and work life.
PD projects have tried to enhance democratic participation in technology
development through design; it is a tradition that wants to empower us-
ers. Since the 1980s, when researchers tested PD methods with industrial
companies and unions, it has developed as a research tradition within and
beyond Scandinavia. In the US, Participatory Design has been even referred
to as the “Scandinavian model” (Bødker, Grønbæk & Kyng 1995).1
Since the 1990s, digitalization has shaped not only industry organi-
zations, but also state administrations (Winthereik 2023; Kjær & Perriam
2024). PD design approaches aim to equalize power relations through
the design of technology and by supporting workers’ agency and learning
in organizations (Kensing & Greenbaum 2012). In the context of digital-
izing welfare states, these approaches could be revisited to drive the de-
velopment in a more human-centered direction; within design research,
anthropological approaches to participatory design and co-creation have
this aim in mind (e.g. Gunn, Otto & Smith 2013; Smith et al. [eds.] 2024).
But despite the success of these methods in research, we seldom find
them in the design methodologies employed for the public sector. In fact,
and much to our surprise as citizens of Scandinavia, where user-oriented
design approaches have been widely implemented, principles from the
service design tradition appear instead.
Service design grows out of an American understanding of the user.
Here, the user is not a subject of empowerment or emancipation, but a
client or a customer. A core value in service design is ease of use, and it is

1. For insight into PD’s relationship to other schools of thought in Scandinavian

systems development, see Bansler, J. (1989). “Systems development research in
Scandinavia: Three theoretical schools”. Scandinavian journal of information sys-
tems, 1(1), 1.

D e s i g n i n g fo r i n c lu s i v i t y 151
therefore geared more towards the user experience than democratic in-
volvement in the development of technology. Like PD and design anthro-
pology, service design is also research-based, and is being developed in
scholarly communities. The main difference is that it is concerned with
interactions at the screen interface, and is less attentive to questions re-
lated to systemic inequalities and the distribution of power.
As Scandinavian governments seek to reform digitalization toward
becoming people-centered, as a first step they might consider how to
build on design traditions that have as their goals emancipation and em-
powerment, rather than technology-use proper. Even PD is traditionally
fairly technology-driven, without much interest in non-use. For pres-
ent-day challenges, new design approaches and methods are required
to engage and make space for partially digital citizens, including their
helpers. There is also a need to move away from the notion that Nordic
welfare societies are more inclusive than others, and consider designs for
minoritized groups (Laiti, Harrer, Uusiautti & Kultuma 2021).
In Chapter 6, on inclusive infrastructures, we explored how the digital
competence of EU populations is currently measured, and demonstrated
that surveys and benchmarks are the standard way in which to monitor
developments. Yet it may be problematic to survey such a complex area
based only on numbers, which imply a stability that can block the un-
derstanding that we are dealing with processes and relations that impact
each other. We believe that thinking about other kinds of methods will be-
come inevitable if we are to move toward becoming digitally just societies,
because quantitative surveys tend to elide the core issues: How do people
learn? What makes them “competent”? What does competence mean for
them? Quantitative surveys are an example of “methods-that-capture”,
in the sense that they freeze a complex situation into a static “fact”, even
when that which is captured is dynamic and capturing it can change its
very nature.2 As this fact consists of processes and relations, we need to
ask whether there might there be additions or alternatives.

2. As an illustration Winthereik once captured an ocean wave in a jar to represent

ocean energy. See reflections on methods-that-capture here: Winthereik, B. R.
(2018). “Seeing through infrastructure: Ethnographies of HealthIT, Development
Aid, Energy and Big Tech.” STS Encounters-DASTS working paper series, 10(3), 1-26.

152 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 An alternative could be seeking to employ methods for technology
development and implementation that 1) follow developments on the
ground as new technologies are rolled out, and 2) follow ambitious, in-
clusive policies. We suggest thinking about how to use “methods-that-fol-
low”, rather than methods-that-capture, as the former acknowledge the
complex techno-politics of digitalization. In fact, doing so is crucial, not
least as public institutions are beginning to embrace AI, and to break
free from methods that both assume and sideline human participation.
Anton Sigfrids and colleagues (2023) help us think in this direction in
their review of human-centricity in AI governance, where they comment
on a tendency in the public governance of technology to focus principally
on whether technologies are breaking the law or breaching fundamental
legal rights. The uptake of human-centered design in governance, they
argue, “fails to consider broader political, ethical, and legal issues that
public administrations need to account for […] [it] is mainly used in ref-
erence to realizing human and fundamental rights, which are necessary,
but not sufficient for emancipatory goals of human flourishing […] and
proves to be ambiguous when scrutinized more closely” (ibid.: 7). The
authors claim that digital technologies in general, and AI in particular,
should be emancipatory. This is not an uncommon perspective within
design communities, in which it is quite usual to search for methods that
can empower users. What we like about this author group is their prior-
itizing of social groups over individuals, and their focus on factoring in
the social (and environmental) sustainability of technology development
in the public sector. “We should note that if the human-centricity con-
cept is understood in terms of its sole and primary focus on humans, it leads
to a very limited understanding of both the conditions of life and society,
and the human psyche, culture, values, and wellbeing” (ibid.: 7, empha-
sis added). The authors point out that the focus on individual humans
(often cast in terms of “users”) is limited. What they propose instead is
technology development that is community- and society-centered, and
which takes into consideration the natural environment and other liv-
ing beings that are part of planetary and human ecosystems (ibid.: 2). To
become more focused on the needs of people (humans as social beings
dependent on natural resources), it is time for the public sector, too, to
make space for methods-that-follow rather than methods-that-capture.

D e s i g n i n g fo r i n c lu s i v i t y 153
Methods-that-follow are attentive to (i.e. follow) developments in the
maze (see Chapter 1), and build on (follow) strategies that seek to com-
bine the politically visionary and innovative with the empathic, respon-
sible, and just.
Let us share an example of what can be considered a “method-that-fol-
lows”. In their paper for medical anthropological scientific communi-
ties, Carreras and Winthereik (2023) present a method of collaborative
drawing developed by Carreras as a way of accommodating diversity in
knowledge production. Making and discussing the drawings is a way to
engage research participants in a conversation about their experiences of
digitalization. Most relevant for the purposes of this book, however, is
the message that it is important to engage people in collaborative analy-
sis, and make them partners in knowledge production, rather than just
sources of information. Jeannette Pols put the challenge of collaboration
nicely (in the following, we may replace “researcher” with any “developer”
working on digital services for the public sector):

We are particularly interested in collaborating with subjects who are

less verbally fluent than the researcher [developer], or who do not
speak the language of the researcher. What does collaboration come
to mean for researchers [developers] and participants? And how
might different approaches make visible different things – and also
ask different things – from our research participants?
(Pols 2023)

The scope of application, as introduced here by Pols, is oriented towards

researchers and their methods. Still, we believe that this approach to
collaboration offers valuable advice to managers and decision-makers
who are responsible for the future directions of public-sector digitali-
zation.
There are many methods available for involving people in develop-
ment initiatives. A common problem, however, is widespread naïveté
about the representation of different groups in design. Participatory
methods, for example, will often assume that participants can travel to a
workshop, concentrate for long periods of time, feel it is safe to raise their
voices, are able to access buildings and digital materials, and so on. Such

154 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
agentive power might seem self-evident, yet it is not (Joshi & Bratteteig
2016). There is much ahead for government actors to do in terms of 1)
being willing to engage and listen to excluded or partially individuals and
community; and 2) taking on methods-that-follow, i.e. qualitative meth-
ods with which governments are less familiar, compared to the quantita-
tive surveys commonly used.3
To sum up, the problems of participation with respect to partially
digital citizens are twofold. On the one hand, participation is often as-
sumed, in the sense that in order to have citizenship in a digital state, you
must use digital technologies. But what about non-users? Or partial us-
ers? The assumed form of participation can become a straitjacket rather
than a blessing. On the other hand, when new technologies are imple-
mented and the public is not consulted, there is very little citizen involve-
ment in the design and digital exclusion results. Today the problem of
participation is not an either-or issue – to grasp it, we need to understand
that participation happens between being involuntarily inscribed as us-
ers, and being left out of the technology design entirely.
To tackle the problem of public participation, state actors must rec-
ognize the multiple modalities of being a citizen, and work to ensure that
the public can participate in ways that take this variation into account.
Below, we propose a framework for addressing some of the issues con-
nected with digital inclusion that we have considered in this book. The
framework has grown out of the chapters and is informed by the notion
that a valuable form of public participation in digitalization is when peo-
ple experience empathy, learning, and justice as values that undergird
their service encounters.

3. Private companies are key in this, especially smaller IT vendors that have experi-
ence with user studies and may be willing to develop more collaborative meth-
ods, and also curious about their power. There will be a new interplay between
vendors and their public customers if collaborative methods are required in the
design and implementation phase, and public clients request that such methods
become part of the process. Politicians may need to regulate the effects of digi-
tal technologies. For suggestions on how to do this, see: https://justitia-int.org/
principper-for-borgernaer-og-inkluderende-digitalisering/

D e s i g n i n g fo r i n c lu s i v i t y 155
 Framework for digital inclusion
In this book, we have talked in general terms about the public sector. In
reality, there are many actors and administrative levels, and not everyone
encounters the challenge of digital inclusion in the same way. To move
on to action recommendations, we need to introduce more marked
distinctions. The framework presented in Table 1 can help us be more
concrete about who has which responsibility, and how they can play a
part in ensuring an inclusive welfare system. It distinguishes three di-
mensions of digital inclusion, breaking it down into activities, goals,
and resources.

Digital inclusion framework

Activity Goal Resources

“Use” situa- Empathy in Deacceleration; analogue alternatives including
tion (mainly the encoun- access to in-person support; no default expecta-
outside pub- ter tion of “digital competences”; short- and long-
lic offices, term digital access for helpers; training materials
in homes, IT for helpers and assistance for helpers in getting
cafés, etc.) tasks done; easy-to-use power of attorney; shared
access to cases for trusted helpers.
Service Learning Easy reporting of exclusion events, including inac-
provision from “local cessible interfaces, login problems etc.; quick and
at public high-tension empathetic response to problems experienced;
offices zones” communal sharing for helpers; co-creation work-
shops with professional facilitators; awareness
events; requirement demands on companies to
make inclusive systems that work after implemen-
tation.
System level Justice, by Monitoring usage and problems encountered,
including harvesting feedback; benchmarking inclusion
digital help- performance across services; quality criteria for
ers in the procurement; requirements to test products with
design groups known to be excluded; measures taken to
identify as yet unknown groups at risk of exclu-
sion; training of frontline workers and bureau-
crats in diversity; equity and inclusion of at-risk
communities; involvement (and remuneration) of
exclusion experts; legal intervention.

TABLE 2. Dimensions of digital inclusion.

156 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
We begin in the office, where there are case-handlers, perhaps reception-
ists, and local leaders. At this level, we propose that the goal of “empa-
thetic encounters” is pursued. We recommend that this goal is concre-
tized in the local context, and that the local team asks how can we, here
and now, realize empathetic encounters? Some additional questions to
ask could be: What is possible to achieve within the current space of pos-
sibility? Can our capacity for meeting citizens be increased (i.e. by offer-
ing an analog alternative)? Can unscheduled visits be accommodated,
perhaps just for a few hours every day? Is our waiting area welcoming,
or should we install chairs or benches for resting? Do we need to raise
awareness about digital exclusion among the case-handlers taking phone
calls? Should they be trained in empathetic conversations? How can we
better support the digital helpers? Can we make any resources availa-
ble to them? Should the leader articulate the ideal that a case-handler
should primarily help solve the citizens’ problems, and that this over-
rules clocking times/ticking off boxes? How much of a shift toward more
empathetic encounters is possible for us to accomplish in this particular
local setting, and for which aspects do we need escalate the objective to a
higher level in the organization?
For those responsible for offering one or more digital services, we
propose the goal of “repair to learn”, to avoid digitalization becoming a
high-tension zone. At this level, leaders and employees can, for instance,
ask: How can we listen to people’s troubles and problems and use them as
a resource for learning and improving? Can we include a feedback mech-
anism in the digital interface of the service (as required by the WCAG
standard)? How well do we use this feedback now, and can we improve?
Can we include it in regular service revisions and updates? Or in the cases
where we do not control the technology, can we pressure the vendor to
redesign and improve the solution (maybe in association with our col-
leagues and the vendor’s other customers)? Or perhaps we should esca-
late the challenge to higher levels that may have enough power to make
the vendors more responsive? Can the service be redesigned to accommo-
date digital helpers? What would it take to allow more than one client to
access and act on a case? Do we really need to request a formal “power of
attorney”, or can we let individual citizens decide how to operate more
smoothly? Can we provide granular and temporal sharing of informa-

D e s i g n i n g fo r i n c lu s i v i t y 157
tion, so that a helper only sees a minimum of personal information? Or
can we provide other kinds of helper-oriented resources? How can we
motivate private companies to take responsibility for some of the above?
For the higher-level authorities (agencies and government actors),
we recommend that the goal of “just digitalization” is articulated more
strongly. This needs to be concretized and applied to the aim of creating
an inclusive welfare system. Much as the Norwegian banking sector, led
by Finance Norway, has established a joint Code of Conduct (Finansiell
inkludering) that describes how to accommodate non-digital customers,
the public sector should articulate how it will amend its digitalization
ambitions toward securing universal welfare.4 This prompts the overar-
ching question: How do we create a welfare system that does not cause
unnecessary exclusion and loss of rights, but serves the citizens and con-
tributes to a socially sustainable and just future? This could involve reori-
enting the monitoring practices and evolution tools for the public sector,
in order to serve these encompassing goals. It could mean creating indi-
cators and benchmarking processes that assist in detecting and address-
ing digital exclusion, but it could also call for researchers to fine-tune
methods-that-follow to ensure that the production of new vulnerabilities
by digitalization is avoided. Actions should also be taken to ensure that
public tender processes include the requirement to undertake a 360-de-
gree analysis of the possible consequences of digitalization, and adhere
to formalized legal requirements such as WCAG compliance – as well as
additional, specific, “inclusion-oriented” requirements that focus on jus-
tice rather than merely solutions for the majority.

Conclusion
This book has shown that the digitalization of public services requires
a vast amount of digital support for those who encounter challenges in
conducting business with the authorities digitally. We have shown that
the strategic-political context in Scandinavia has prepared the ground
for the self-servicing, autonomous digital citizen who is competent to

4. https://www.finansnorge.no/tema/finansiell-inkludering/

158 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
use digital services around the clock (Chapter 2); however, when “the dig-
ital citizen” is inscribed into service design that focuses on the costumer
experience rather than on rights and people’s agency, it can create ex-
clusion. In reality, as we have shown, “users” are enmeshed in social net-
works that are empowered to differing degrees throughout the course of
a lifetime. The notion of the digital citizen does not match the everyday
lives of most people, and as such creates excess work – for helpers as well
as for the public authorities. We have proposed a new term – the partially
digital citizen – to highlight the situated and socially embedded nature of
being digitally competent, and to outline the necessity for better public
support for life in the digitalized state, including for non-users (Chapter
3). We showed that for many people, “digital citizenship” is about ongo-
ing work, rather than something they “possess”; it can be enacted when
they get help from others, but this help is ad hoc and rarely well-organ-
ized (Chapters 4 and 5).
In Chapters 6 and 7, we looked into the systemic constraints of an
inclusive digital welfare system, and observed that the current welfare
service system does not systematically learn from local breakdowns. We
discussed how the high-tension zones in which exclusion takes place can
be considered situations of breakdown and potential repair. At present,
exclusion at the frontline makes a difference to the overall system if a
complaint is filed or evaluations are conducted, but experiences of digital
exclusion must be better recorded if the welfare system is to learn – as it
must – how to adopt welcoming and inclusive practices. We argued that
if digital welfare systems were considered to be adaptive, evolving systems
(ecologies), this could improve the preparedness to record mistakes and
promote inclusivity at the frontline.
Let us return to the example that opened this chapter, where we saw a
local breakdown caused by a mismatch between the requirements of the
photo booth and the realities of citizens. In this instance, the frontline
worker “solved” the problem – at least temporarily. Unfortunately, there
often is a mismatch between the world championship discourse and peo-
ple’s experiences of digitalization on the ground, which imposes a barrier
to digital inclusion due to a lack of understanding of the challenges in
people’s homes and in the municipalities. It is only due to an efficient

D e s i g n i n g fo r i n c lu s i v i t y 159
army of informal helpers that the welfare service system is prevented
from breaking down in a big way.
Passport production has often been used as an example of why digital-
ization should generally be considered a kind of progress for the citizen,
who no longer has to wait in line in offices. In a public debate organized
at the IT University of Copenhagen in 2017 by one of the authors, the
case of issuing a passport was used by one of the presenters to emphasize
the efficiency generated by digitalization. The presenter, a top manager
and strategist at Digital Government Denmark, pointed out that sharing
the workload between the public authorities and citizens had made pre-
viously cumbersome passport application processes quicker and much
easier for citizens, as well as employees; preparing documents from home
could save the citizen up to six hours of work compared to applying for
passports at a police station. “Fill in the forms at home and then just
show up at the Citizen Service Center, where the rest of the process will be
handled smoothly. Self-service not only makes the process more conven-
ient for the citizen, it is also a way of ensuring the survival of the welfare
society,” the strategist argued, referring to the economic aspects of trans-
ferring work to the citizen.
It is a common argument that digitalization can make some things
easier, while face-to-face human contact is reserved for those citizens
who really need it. But let us be clear: introducing advanced technolo-
gies rarely frees up resources, it merely displaces them elsewhere. When
the digitalization leader and strategist argued in 2017 that digitalization
should not just be considered a transfer of labor, but also a form of em-
powerment, he acknowledged that this kind of empowerment was not
for everyone: “I was empowered, I could do my part of the work of getting
the passport. Do we exclude some part of the population? Yes, I think we
do. But when I am thinking of people at the margins, I would say it is not
about digitalization, but about social policy” (Jens Krieger Røyen, at the
time Head of Office in Digital Government Denmark).5
Here, a distinction is being made between digitalization and social is-
sues. The underlying idea is that people who are already vulnerable, such

5. Listen to the recording at https://video.itu.dk/video/16176720/data-as-relation-

launch-event, timestamp 71:19.

160 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
as war veterans in Denmark who have gone off to live in the woods, must
be helped, and social policies are responsible for ensuring this. Digital
technologies can then offload some of the pressure onto the humans
who take care of vulnerable people. The narrative is part of a widespread
discourse that optimization can be planned this way, but it does not con-
sider the fact that technology is part of every encounter between citizens
and public authorities. Nor does it take into account that to include peo-
ple, there must be the intention of doing so. It is a standardized narrative,
which – despite its celebration of digitalization as a solution to current
problems of the digital welfare state – dismisses the vulnerability that dig-
ital technology can also create. It takes insight and work, and thus time,
to avoid implementing digital technologies in ways that create value for
the users without making them vulnerable. The municipal photo booth,
a seemingly innocent bit of technology, makes both the citizen and the
citizen service center employees vulnerable: in the first instance, through
the exclusionary effects of the machine on some bodies and not others; in
the second, by creating new kinds of risk connected with data protection
and privacy.
Let us make sure that digitalization of the public sector does not make
people vulnerable. Let us make sure we are not creating more problems
than we already have by using digital technologies. Let us make digital
technologies in the public sector serve everybody equally well – and if
they do not, let us offer alternatives.

D e s i g n i n g fo r i n c lu s i v i t y 161
 Afterword
Bjørn Erik Thon

Equality and anti-discrimination ombud, Norway.

When my father-in-law turned 60, he decided to “go digital”. He regis-
tered as a digital user in the public welfare system, got an e-mail-address
from a provider, and decided to “learn one new thing on the internet
every day”. He managed very well, but after some years he had to give it
up. The technology became impossible for him to handle, and he became
one of too many victims of digital exclusion. It did not happen from one
day to the next, but gradually, bit by bit.
I often use this example because it emphasizes the challenges many
people face today. Even if they work at it, things are getting too compli-
cated, and even those who were once digitally competent are losing their
proficiency. I never anticipated this happening. Looking back ten years,
my forecast then was that the technology of the future would be simple,
user-friendly, and available to everyone.
We often believe that digital exclusion affects mostly the elderly, but
this is only partly true. Ethnic minorities and people with disabilities also
fall within this group, as do young people, particularly those from the
abovementioned groups. This brings us to the big question: What should
we do? As this book makes apparent, there is no single or easy answer to
this question. We need to use as many means as possible to push back on
digital exclusion. But let me remind you of one sentence in the introduc-
tion to this book that raises an issue of particular importance: We know
from research that infrastructures, once they have been built, can be very hard to
re-engineer. This is relevant to all sorts of technological development, not
only infrastructure. And yes, re-engineering is hard – but it’s also very ex-
pensive. Thus, to develop inclusive technology, the developers must have

A f t e rw o r d B j ø r n Er i k T h o n 163
inclusion at the top of their minds from the moment they start coding
and building the user interface, through to the final result.
We have a lot to learn from data protection in this matter. Data pro-
tection by design, the big brother of digital inclusion, has been a well-known
concept for quite some years. Transferred to the field of discrimination
and exclusion, the first step is to make an early, well-grounded decision
about the use of the system: for instance, an app or a tool for recruiting.
In simplified terms, the next steps are to use training data and conduct
testing on relevant user groups. It is very surprising how often developers
“forget” to include people with disabilities or elderly people in this phase
of development, even if these groups are pointed out as important users.
And, when the system is launched, developers must monitor its function-
ing very closely to make the necessary improvements.
If we do not change the way we develop technology, we are at risk
of losing generations of people because they lack digital knowledge. We
also need greater political engagement, because the focus has been on
digitalizing, almost at any cost. Let there be no mistake, digitalization
is of great benefit to society – both for citizens and in terms of social
efficiency. But we are losing too many along the way. The road to hell is
paved with good intentions. So let us replace intentions with means and
activities, with politics and engagement. The results of this will be that
skilled, well-educated, and motivated people will be able to prolong their
working life, and more people will gain the social benefits to which they
are entitled.
While my dear father-in-law had a long and happy life, he need not
have spent his final years like so many of his generation and, indeed, peo-
ple of all ages – digitally excluded.

164 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 Acknowledgements

This book has benefitted from comments by and conversations with

many people whom we would like to thank. Those who deserve the warm-
est thanks are the people, who have shared their stories and experiences
of digitalization with us over the years. Thank you! We hope the book
will make a small difference in placing emphasis on the additional work
you and many others do to make sense of and exist in a digital society.
From the SOS project (Infrastructures for Partially Digital Citizens,
2020–2024) we warmly thank Barbara Nino Carreras, Mikaela Åberg,
Katherine S. Brown, Thorben Simonsen, Søren Skaarup, Mona Lundin,
Annika Bergviken Rensfeldt, Irina Papazu, Elin Thygesen, and Carl Erik
Moe from the partner universities. Warm thanks to Michala Høg Dai-
mar and Casper Freundlich from Digitaliseringsstyrelsen and Kasper Nizam
and colleagues at Implement Consulting for their commitment to the
project. We would like to thank the project’s academic advisory board
for great input along the way: Neil Selwyn, Ingunn Moser, Naja Holten
Møller, Mikkel Flyverbom, Jeannette Pols, and Sampsa Hyysalo.
Several people have commented on individual chapters or text snip-
pets for which they deserve heartfelt thank you for your time and insights:
Sampsa Hyysalo, Øystein Sæbø, Søren Skaarup, Barbara Nino Carreras,
Pragnan Thaba, Karen Ejersbo, Casper Bruun Jensen, Marika Sabroe, Jes-
per Balslev, Anders Kjærulff, Anders Frandsson, and Brit’s colleagues in
the Human-Centered Innovation section at DTU.
Participants in the Arendalsuka workshop and in the conference on
the responsibility of private companies for citizen-centered digitalization
were sources of great inspiration and we thank you for your time and the
care you put into these events.
For their practical support, creativity and patience, we would like
to thank Louise Eltard-Larsen, Katrine Krogh Pedersen, Solbjørg Mo,

Ac k n o w l e d g e m e n t s 165
Ninette Holbech Pedersen, Mette Müller, and Ester Vinter Ringsmose.
Last but not least, we thank Marie-Louise Karttunen and Matt Evans for
excellent copyediting. Britta Østergård has been an incredible editor.
Nordforsk generously sponsored the research (ID 0188-00007B). We
would like to thank Bodil Aurstad and everybody at the foundation who
supports research collaborations across the Nordic and Baltic countries.

166 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
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176 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
 Index

A Digital citizenship 44
Access 46 Digital competence 32, 47
Accessibility 103 Digital ecology 131
Accountability 68 Digital Europe 28
Actual users 41 Digital exclusion 15
Adaptability 129 Digital first 57
AI 153 Digital helper 84
Alt-text description 105 Digital housekeeping 98
Articulation work 69, 72 Digital inclusion 25
Digital inclusion framework 156
B Digital infrastructures 104
Basic digital skills 49
Digitalization 20
Benchmark instruments 29
Digitally disempowered 55
Bjønnes et al., 2022 47
Digital maturity 30
Broken worlds 135
Digital monitoring 69
Burden of care 99
Digital societies 26
Burden of digital care 99
Digital support 85
BUROC 107
Digital technologies as environ-
C ments 16
Capacities 31 Disconnecting 79
Care work 67 Displacement 100
Collaborative analysis 154 Distributed autonomy 143
Collaborative drawing 154 Domain skills 49
Composites 110 Drop-in support 85
Computer networks 142 Dummy services 97
Configurations 66
E
Contrast 105
Embedding 117
Convenience 13
Emergence 142
Co-produced 83
European Commission 13
Co-production 83
EUROSTAT, 2022a 46
Cross-border mobility 30
Experiences 17
D Extended work practices 71
D/deaf 105
F
Delegation 85
Failure 130

Index 177
Feedback 145 M
Frontline 66 Mandatory digital policy 57
Methods-that-capture 152
G
Methods-that-follow 153
Gendered 99
Mismatch 73
Government digitalization strate-
Multi-helper 88
gies 27
GSMA, 2022 46 N
Networked 110
H
Neutrality 13
Health-related barriers 51
NKOM, 2022 46
Helper access 61
Nordic Council of Ministers 28, 31
Helper role 97
Nordregio 30
Helsenorge 59, 76
Heterogeneity 56 O
Human rights 55 Open school platform 71

I P
Impossible standard 132 Partners in knowledge produc-
Inclusive infrastructure 128 tion 154
Inclusive infrastructures 115 Personal information 87
Inclusive methods 150 Plain language 107
Inclusive system 129 Precision 143
Informal 85 Preempting problems 81
Informal digital help 85 Preparedness 144
Informal digital support 17, 42 Projekt Udenfor 136
Information infrastructure 115 Propagation 122
Infrastructure 110, 115 Propagation of exclusion 122
Inheritance 122 Proxy use 92
Installed base 112, 116
Installed base inertia 113 Q
Interoperability 114 Qualitative monitoring 34
Invisible work 66 R
J Redistribution 85
Justitia 52 Register data 114
Reification 39
K Relational 116
Keyboard commands 105 Repair 69
Key enablers 30 Repair studies 99
Retrofitting 103
L
Roots 123
Learning system 129
Legacy systems 111 S
Local–global tension 116 Sensitive 87
Lower cost 13 Service design 151
Skills training 85, 134

178 D I G I TA L I N C L U S I O N
Skolplattform 71 Transition points 59
Socially extended user 61 Transparency 30
Social sustainability 16, 150
Sorting work 79
U
Universal design principles 104
Standards 114
universality 45
Surveillance 69
Universal services 121
Swedish Education Act 70
UN’s Special Rapporteur 15
T Use 135
Technical access 32 User centricity 30
Technological determinism 66 User studies 155
Technology user 41
Tension 116
V
Visible work 68
The digital citizen 43
The digital divide 46 W
The Digital Economy and Society Warm experts 98
Index (DESI) 13 Web of connections 123
The digital transformation 13 Work 26, 67
The field of repair studies 134 Working models of digital inclu-
The margin of indeterminacy 143 sion 27
The partially digital citizen 42 Workplace studies 65
Third actors 74 World champion logic 18
Transition phases 59

Index 179