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AI Watch

Norway: Public Sector dimension of AI Strategy

Introduction

This page reports a synthesis of the main elements that characterise the national AI strategy with a specific focus on the public sector. It extracts the information related to a single country from a comparative analysis done by the AI Watch team and reported in full in the science for policy report “AI Watch. European Landscape on the Use of Artificial Intelligence by the Public Sector”.

Main highlights

  • Strategy aims to support value creation and use of AI in the public sector
  • Facilitate the sharing of public sector data among public sector agencies, 
  • Legal barriers to public sector AI will be reviewed and updated, in particular issues regarding data protection and statutory authority
  • All AI used in the government have to be transparent and explainable
  • Guidelines will be made available to help public administrations overcome uncertainties 
  • Public procurement can be an instrument to adopt AI in Norwegian public administrations. Innovation partnerships and innovative procurement may be good tools for this.

Strategy analysis

Learning by doing

  • Regulatory sandboxes
  • Pilots projects
Stimulating awareness and knowledge sharing
  • Awareness campaigns
  • Building an international community

Ethical and legal framework

  • Development of ethical frameworks
  • Reform of data sharing laws
Improving data access and quality
  • Improving data quality
  • Improving data access
  • Access to private sector data

Funding and procurement

  • Stimulation of GovTech startups
  • Revision of procurement processes
Improving internal capacity
  • Training on AI

 

Comment

Collaboration between the public and the private sector will contribute to unlocking the innovative potential of AI in Norway. The strategy focuses on the procurement process, mentioning that the public sector should actively explore opportunities provided through the market and using (innovative) procurement when appropriate. Innovative projects within public sector enterprises are also highlighted.

Access to high quality datasets is seen as a key priority. All information should be made accessible as open data. To assist data sharing Norway has established a national resource centre for data sharing in the Norwegian Digitalization Agency. The Norwegian strategy also highlights the importance of data sharing among public sector agencies. A National Data Catalogue provides an overview of datasets, descriptions, concepts, APIs and information models.

A Pilot Schemes in the Public Administration Act allows public administrations to gain permission to test their new ways of working for up to four 4 year.

General Information

Title

National Strategy for Artificial Intelligence

Data of release

Jan 2020

 

Specific actions to public sector

 

Section 4.2 AI-based innovation in the public sector

Section 2.1 Data and data management

Section 2.3 Regulations