Scope 2 (SC-2) Card

Card Details - Two of Scope

Abbreviation

SC-2

Card's focus

The focus of this card is service transparency

Threat to claimants

Tommy does not create, publish and maintain publicly all the service assumptions, specifications, constraints, source code, algorithms, formulas, configuration settings, operating instructions and processes

Threat to claimants

Some examples of how this threat could lead to harms (negative effects on claimants)

The design recommendations and implications relevant to the card are listed below in the next section, but even those can be somewhat abstract and difficult to think about during practical day-to-day implementation. Therefore, some example harms are provided to complement the more formal research outputs. These examples are unique per card, and are only published on these web pages (i.e. in no other project outputs).

Claimants cannot find out whether they are being treated fairly and correctly, losing self-efficacy
The service design lacks third party scrutiny, leading to errors in how it is implemented; when it is realised claimants have been underpaid, claimants are either not contacted and informed promptly and/or are not paid what is due in a timely manner leaving the claimants financially distressed
The details of algorithms used in decision-making have not been recorded or shared publically, so the outcomes which affect claimants cannot be sure algorithm uses are safe, fair, just, and responsible

The examples are to help understand the threat on the card, not to suppress thinking and innovation. Incorporating these examples exactly, or closely matching ones, should be scored down when playing DBD Cornucopia as a game.

Applicable design recommendations and implications

These are reproduced here from Research Briefing NO2. Multiple cards reference each design implication.

Embrace a wider ecosystem and fuller claimant activity viewpoint for digitised public services

Legitimise extensibility and customisation of digital infrastructure
Deploy technology in ways that will permit, support and advocate integration with digital welfare by other actors. Provide timely, free and open access to system information, supporting content, and details of upcoming changes and updates to support these efforts.

General Notes

Card values (i.e. '2' for this card) are for game play and are not correlated with the severity of harm. This is because threats cannot be ranked directly since they can affect individuals in different ways due to situations and circumstances, or affect fewer or more claimants, or the harms can arise in claimants' support networks and wider society.

The threat description uses a person's name as the "attacker" (i.e. 'Tommy' for this card), which can be thought of someone involved with implementation. They could have any role which influence digitisation. So they could be a database administrator, or a copy writer, or a quality assurance specialist, etc, or all of these. Everyone could have some influence on the claimant threat described. The names were randomly selected from those currently most popular as given names for boys and girls (UK Office for National Statistics).

The example harms provided are drawn from the research data (which explored not only parts of existing services but also the effects of possible changes to those), from the author's own knowledge of web application development and testing, the author's own experience of helping citizens to claim Universal Credit (UC) and Personal Independence Payment (PIP), and from suggestions submitted by other people (make a suggestion). The threats and example harms do not necessarily exist in the current UC or PIP deployments or in ecosystems around those services, but they might well do.

All the cards in this Scope suit are: 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 J Q K A

The other suits in the deck are: Architecture, Agency, Trust, Porosity and Cornucopia (plus Jokers).