Questions

The national conversation starts with clear questions. Explore the core issues across society, the private sector, and the public realm.

Digital Society

The digital world should be brought into the political mainstream, not treated as a niche technocratic concern.

What ethical frameworks should we use in the digital world?
How do we expand the digital world in Welsh, Gaelic, and other minority languages?
Are we at risk of losing access to our cultural history with online and streaming? How do we preserve our digital patrimony?
How do we tackle Child Sexual Abuse Material and harassment in the online world? Is it simply baked into the tools? Should employees have criminal liability?
How do we make it possible for people who cannot or will not be digital natives to live and thrive in society?
What is 'just enough' internet?
How has digital changed education? What effect is AI having?
What needs to be done to protect childhood? Should children have phones in school? What restrictions should be placed on their online lives?
How do we tackle the epidemic of crime and fraud?

Questions about data, business models, platform behavior, and social impact in digital markets.

Have we created a surveillance economy? Are there limits to what companies should be able to know and collect about us, as citizens and as employees?
Who owns our data and who should? Who should be able to collect it? Who should be able to buy it? Where should it be stored?
What are the limits on acceptable business models for new digital enterprises?
How do we ensure digital markets are free? Should citizens have formal rights to take their data with them? Should platforms be forced to be open? What do anti-monopoly provisions look like in the digital age?
How do we ensure that private businesses do not erode social trust and endanger society?
What are the limits on copyright? How do artists and creators get paid?
Is AI all it's cracked up to be? Is it a bubble? If so, what happens when it pops?
What obligations should private companies have to prevent their users from being harassed, stalked, or abused on their platforms?

Questions about capability, delivery, oversight, and how digital public services work for everyone.

How do parliament and government make decisions about digital systems? Do our legal and parliamentary processes need reform?
How do we fund our state digital infrastructure and oversee that spending?
How are technical decisions taken? Are we sure there is the correct oversight?
Why do big digital projects often fail, and how do we make them better?
How do we provide services to those who cannot use digital channels: the old, the vulnerable, the damaged, and the chaotic? How do we put people at the heart of the modern digital state?
How do we join services up? How do we coordinate them?

The digital world should be brought into the political mainstream, not treated as a niche technocratic concern.

How do we get an independent digital news media?
What comes after the high nationalisms that existed in a world of national newspapers, national radio, national education, national television, and national literature, now that those are gone? Particularly for the English-speaking world?
What are the consequences of digital society for social trust? What needs to happen to rebuild it?
Will AI take all our jobs? Is it a problem if it does?
How do we push back against the surveillance workplace, and the gigification of the economy, and put people back at the center?
What forms of political organization do we need for the new world? How should political parties react and change?
What is the relationship of the citizen and the state? How has it been changed by digitization? Should we be worried? What are civil liberties in an all-digital, joined-up state?
What happens if anti-constitutional actors seize control of the state, as has happened in America?

Questions about law, regulation, market governance, and the state as rule-maker in a digital age.

How do we address the epidemic of online fraud? How do we stop the industrial production of Child Sexual Abuse Material? How can we free the digital world from online harassment, particularly of women?
What does Trading Standards mean in the digital world?
Where are crimes committed in the digital world? How do we get justice served? What are the implications for relationships with other countries and international institutions?
How do we ensure digital markets are free markets: free of market abuse, manipulation, lies, and deceit? How do we tackle monopolies and monopsonies?
What private companies and services have become utilities that should be regulated like their analogue counterparts?
Are there investment models other than the Silicon Valley one? Is Silicon Valley over? Should our digital economy remain California-orientated?
What limits are there on acceptable business models for new digital businesses?

Questions about freedom, media scrutiny, competition, and long-term development in the digital economy.

What is freedom of the press in the digital age? How do we preserve and expand the scrutiny function that analogue press provided? What obligations do private sectors have regarding disinformation and hybrid warfare?
What alternative models exist for utility digital platforms, like mail, search, and hosting?
How should we support economic development in the digital sector? Is there an alternative to the Silicon Valley model? Do we need to orient away from California?
How do we get from a model of economic success based on own-a-monopoly to one built on a deep, rich, competitive sector?
What is the role of education and universities in private sector and economic development?
Does ownership matter in the modern world? If so, what are the implications for our local economies?

Questions about state power, democratic safeguards, security posture, and protection against bad actors.

How do we protect the citizen from the new digital powers of the state?
How do we make the state coup-proof from internal enemies of democracy?
Where should our data be stored?
Is American and Chinese tech an existential threat? What do we do if the Americans turn off government email systems, as they did to the International Criminal Court?
Does the cross-border nature of digital technology require an international institutional response? If so, what institutions?
Is ownership important in the modern world?
How powerful are big tech companies anyway? Should governments be afraid of them?
How do we build an appropriate defense posture in a world of hybrid warfare?
How do we protect society and politics from bad actors, state operations, dirty money, and corruption?

Questions about liberty, trust, rights, and the international governance needed for digital systems.

To what extent is joined-up government a threat to liberty?
What is just enough digital?
What is freedom in the digital age, and how has it changed from our analogue notions?
What do we mean by social trust? Is it possible in the digital age? If it is, how do we build it?
What are the trade-offs between encryption and security?
What institutions above the UK are required to regulate the digital world and bring it in line with democratic norms?
How do we internationalize legal and criminal justice systems so that cross-border digital crimes can be dealt with appropriately?
What do we need so that devolved jurisdictions can meaningfully sanction global corporations?