Audrey Tang: OK. Of course, please, do.

Miku Sano: Thank you so much. I’m very nervous.

Audrey Tang: That’s fine.

Miku Sano: I prepared but I’ll be probably reading most of the interview for my English. Since we have only an hour from your busy schedule, I’d like to start a question. I introduce myself. I work for “The Big Issue.” I’ve been working with homeless people through Big Issue for 18 years.

Miku Sano: I have lots of questions from what I’ve read from your book but also maybe about topic of poverty and homelessness as well. The first question is, in 2014, you retired at age of 33 from business world and participated in the Sunflower Student Movement.

Miku Sano: In an interview you have said that you first heard the news that the student took over the Legislative Yuan, you rushed to the scene shouting, “Democracy’s calling me,” and joined the movement. What were the thought going through your mind at that time?

Audrey Tang: I didn’t shout anything… I typed. [laughs]

Miku Sano: Sorry. Oh, you typed. OK.

Audrey Tang: Yes. I typed into the internal communication tool at one of the Silicon Valley companies that I was working with called Socialtext. I was saying to my colleagues that I need to take a few days off, “because democracy needs me”. That’s what I typed. I didn’t shout anything, just for the record. [laughs]

Audrey Tang: To answer your question, what I thought around that time is that communication, I understand, is the critical thing to preserve and rebuild trust between the activists in the parliament and the people on the street and many more online.

Audrey Tang: I understood that if people gets confused by the disinformation or my people eliciting violent responses, then it will be a escalation very easily and very quickly. Then we will end up with a really bad outcome for the occupy movement.

Audrey Tang: I also understood that if we set up such a communication mechanisms, learning from the lessons from other occupy movements, then we can build trust and reach what I call good-enough consensus on the topic triggering the occupy.

Audrey Tang: My ideas was very simply that if this occupy is about breaking through the so-called black box, the opaqueness of decision-making, then we need to wield transparency in order to overcome it.

Miku Sano: You’ve seen the opportunities to open up the box, to make transparent community or society in Taiwan.

Audrey Tang: Yes. I see it as a demonstration, not in demonstrating against, like protesting against something, but a demonstration as in a demo, a demo for transparency.

Miku Sano: By participating in that movement, you’ve created or Taiwan, you think, proceeded to a more transparent society?

Audrey Tang: Yes, but that is not just me. It’s hundreds, thousands of civic technologists in the G-0-V or g0v umbrella community that set up the communication infrastructure for the Occupy movement.

Miku Sano: The people’s participation and agreement that they all needed that transparent society in order for Taiwan to move forward.

Audrey Tang: That is correct.

Miku Sano: OK, thank you. The next question, as a digital minister of Taiwan government, you have described your job as a public servant of public servants, and my job is to utilize the wisdom of society to serve the public interest. How do you think you can contribute to that?

Miku Sano: You have also said that there are various positions in society and in order to achieve the public interest that I am aiming for, it is necessary to find common value. What is the public interest that you wish to achieve?

Audrey Tang: I think the idea of a common value is necessary in order to respond to new emerging situations. For example, when a pandemic comes, if we do not have common values, there are many governments that thought, oh, I have to sacrifice privacy in order to do contact tracing or public health.

Audrey Tang: Or when disinformation problem begins in social media, there’s many governments thinking, oh, we have to sacrifice a little bit of free speech in order to counter this mental health hazard, that is disinformation to protect democracy and so on.

Audrey Tang: Once we have the common values formed by the entire society, often the innovation that comes from the people closest to the field, to the pain, solves the dilemma by innovating into something that doesn’t sacrifice one value over another but is a innovation that takes care of both side while creating something new.

Audrey Tang: This is everyone’s business with everyone’s help. That’s why we call it social innovation. My personal contribution are two. The first is to make more pro-social public spaces, both offline and online, for those good enough consensus common values to form. That’s the first one.

Audrey Tang: The second, once we identify some common values and when a local-scale, small innovation appears, then my role is to amplify it to countrywide. That’s my other role.

Miku Sano: Thank you so much. Sorry. The public interest that you are wish to achieve…

Audrey Tang: It’s very meta. Instead of one specific value I want to achieve, I want to shorten the time it takes for people of different position to agree on common values and also responding to challenges amplify the innovation that can take care of those values. I myself doesn’t have any specific innovation in mind. When it happens, I amplify it.

Miku Sano: I understand. You are creating a tool for people to have the common ground, common value.

Audrey Tang: Yes.

Miku Sano: OK. I understand. Thank you. You have worked in the government for seven years now.

Audrey Tang: Six years, but yes.

Miku Sano: Through that work, is there any experience that influenced or changed your views or thought and any ideas you have encountered and be excited with?

Audrey Tang: Two main things come to mind. Before I began my work in the public service, I used to think that the society, the social sector, or the private sector are more innovative than the bureaucrats. I believe many other people also think that. It’s not just me. I, after working in the government, come to think the career public servants are the most innovative people that I have met.

Audrey Tang: My stereotype about bureaucracy changed by my real working experience with the career public service. It’s just those innovations are not often seen by the public or by the media. In Taiwan, as is in Japan, it usually is the minister’s job to talk to the public, not the individual career public service. They remain somewhat anonymous.

Audrey Tang: By creating new spaces where the career public service can engage directly with the public, people understood that, “Oh, they are actually much more innovative than we have thought.” That’s the first thing I learned.

Audrey Tang: The second thing I have learned is that to give no trust is to get no trust. That is to say, if we don’t trust the people to come up with the social innovations, if we want to, in a top-down way, rule over people, then it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. People become untrustworthy because we do not share the real-time context and policy information for them to co-create.

Audrey Tang: If we trust the people, for example, by offering the real-time inventory of mask availability at pharmacies or by offering people a open standard of a QR code on top of which they can do their own QR code scanning applications in way of contact tracing and so on.

Audrey Tang: If we trust the people with the same information that we have received ourself, the same data that we have access to ourselves, then people become trustworthy. They too would like to contribute to the public health.

Miku Sano: When you said give no trust, get no…

Audrey Tang: “To give no trust is to get no trust.” This means in order for the government to get trust from people, the government need to first trust the citizens.

Miku Sano: Do you think it works vice-versa?

Audrey Tang: If we trust the citizens, some of the citizens may trust back, of course. Not all will trust back. Some will decide to still hold us to account by demanding explanations. They are exactly as contributor as the people who reciprocate with trust.

Audrey Tang: In a liberal democratic society, we rely on the people who doesn’t trust us in order to hold us accountable to make sure that we are not corrupt. To trust a citizen, that’s the most important. Whether the citizens trust back or not, both sides have their merits.

Miku Sano: That is the things that you’ve learned or you discovered working as a public servant.

Audrey Tang: Yes. These two things, the first is that innovation also comes from the public service, not just the society or the private sector. The second is that when we want to co-create, to innovate together with the society, instead of asking people to trust the government, we need to do the reverse, trust the citizens from the public service.

Miku Sano: I see. Thank you. We’ve seen so much the government asking people trust and people to trust the government.

Audrey Tang: It needs to be earned. The way to earn trustworthiness is to trust the people.

Miku Sano: Of course. Thank you. About social inclusion, there are 3,510 people sleeping rough in Japan as of beginning of 2021. The number does not include those who are in unstable housing condition. Other research found that in Tokyo alone, about 4,000 people living in unstable conditions.

Miku Sano: In my understanding, no country in the world succeeded to eradicate poverty and homelessness. I’d like to know, is there homeless people in Taiwan? How does Taiwan tackle with homelessness? How did it work?

Audrey Tang: Of course, there are not-for-profit social entrepreneurs focusing on the issue. For example, homelesstaiwan.org focus on the issue of homelessness, mostly working to build empathy.

Audrey Tang: That is to say, they run efforts like Hidden Taipei that introduce the people to the homeless people and introduce the homeless people as the guides the tours to the streets they are very familiar with and open more doors to interactions to them.

Audrey Tang: It is still something that we are working on right now. Because we have countered the pandemic very successfully, the pandemic causing poverty, and causing homelessness, and causing isolation and so on, Taiwan is suffering a great deal less compared to any other countries.

Miku Sano: Sorry. I missed the last part. Taiwan is suffering less homelessness?

Audrey Tang: Yeah. What I’m trying to say is that around the world in the past couple years, homelessness increased by around 20 percent or so because of the pandemic. This is a number that we are very aware of.

Audrey Tang: What I’m trying to say is that because Taiwan, for the last year, we are mostly COVID-free, and for this year there’s been the single-digit local transmissions for more than a month now and we didn’t have any COVID before May, a large portion of the last couple years was remarkably COVID-free.

Audrey Tang: Because of that, our ratio of homelessness did not increase that significantly compared to our international counterparts. It’s not saying that we don’t have homeless people.

Miku Sano: We are both still tackling with that issue.

Audrey Tang: Yes, that is correct.

Miku Sano: As we, The Big Issue Japan aim to achieve the increasing society while creating jobs and opportunities for people who are homeless, we try to pick up in the magazine the voices and views that are underrepresented. In your opinion, what is the most important thing for a society when realizing inclusion that leaves no one behind?

Audrey Tang: Sorry, I didn’t get the last part of the question. I heard you saying about what is the most important measure to be inclusive and leave no one behind. I didn’t get a context before that. Can you ask again?

Miku Sano: I was pointing out that, at The Big Issue Japan, we try to include those people who are underrepresented. We are still in such a long way to go. I’d like to ask your opinion or advice, what is the most important things for society?

Audrey Tang: I see. For our homeless population of around 3,000 registered in Taiwan, a country of 23-or-so million people, there are two main things that we are doing to help. The first is to de-label these people.

Audrey Tang: Instead of calling them the homeless or so on, as I mentioned, there are many charities that flips this around and say that they are the street guides, for example, for the people who want to get to know more about the street.

Audrey Tang: When we hand out the stimulus vouchers, or reimbursements, or things like that, we make sure that they follow exactly the same way as the other parts of the citizen or population.

Audrey Tang: Their issuance of such stimulus budget and so on is done in a way that maximizes their privacy in a sense that they either write something like a postcard and put it to the PO box without having to queue in line, which is additional trouble, or they can also, if they have a bank account, receive directly into the bank account.

Audrey Tang: Even if they don’t have a bank account, we make sure that this entire application process can take place through mail instead of through the face-to-face queuing mechanisms. Be more considerate and inclusive in designing the services that are used is very important to de-label them.

Audrey Tang: That is one of the most important thing. The other thing is also important is to build empathy, to make sure that the entire society including the students but also everyone to understand about their situations to be in their shoes so to speak, and to experience the kind of life that they have.

Audrey Tang: Once these empathies are made, then we can design more inclusive spaces. For example, around the main train stations and so on there could be sufficient amount of room instead of causing a conflict between the homeless people and the passengers. I hope that answers your question. Sorry. I didn’t get the full question.

Miku Sano: It is quite interesting. I mean, I was intrigued the first one when you mentioned about getting a voucher but still, their privacy are protected. They don’t have to line up and explain about their situation face-to-face.

Audrey Tang: That’s correct.

Miku Sano: You can just post mail or apply online?

Audrey Tang: Yes. They can either apply online or if they don’t have connectivity, then they can also print it themselves or from a social worker and fill in the details and drop it, no stamp required, into a post forum. Then the PO box has people who will type in their requests into the same online platform.

Audrey Tang: We do digital transformation in our service. It’s about bringing technology to the people instead of asking people to adapt to technology.

Miku Sano: One of the very big problems in Japan for this is that we have a social service but not everybody is able to use it, maybe 20 to 30 percent of the people get subsidies from the government when they need it.

Miku Sano: One of the thing is the trauma to go into the office and explain about their past or their failure. I was very impressed about that process is eliminated in Taiwan. If they can do that online, how if that person really need it or not?

Audrey Tang: We looked at the tax filing records. Because we have entirely digitalized the tax filing records, we can very easily. Everyone in Taiwan has a number like your My Number system. Using the number, we can easily see whether they have filed sufficient income tax.

Audrey Tang: If they had not or if they need to support a large household and things like that, then they qualify for the emergency budget immediately. We have a entire system of digitalizing the incoming postcards as well as the over-the-counter social worker that helped to hand out those forms but without them having to explain anything to those social workers and so on.

Audrey Tang: You never know whether they’re collecting it for themself or collecting it for a friend. This is privacy-preserving.

Miku Sano: Thank you. Also, I was very impressed about making increasing space in the station, the idea of that is very interesting. That was my next question. We were very impressed and moved by the story of smiling installation of Taiwan’s station concourse.

Miku Sano: I guess that’s connected to the answer you gave us, but could you please tell us how this idea came about and how the public reacted to this project?

Miku Sano: Could you also tell us about…That would be little bit a different question, but you’ve also mentioned about new Taiwanese. Could also explain about that?

Audrey Tang: I’m sorry?

Miku Sano: In your book, there is a word, new Taiwanese.

Audrey Tang: Yeah, the new Taiwanese, yes. The smiles, I believe, are written in the characters of Japanese, English, Korean, French, Vietnamese, Indonesian, Filipino, Thai, Malay… I’m missing one… Mandarin, of course.

Audrey Tang: All of these are different languages are there to make sure that the new Taiwanese feel free, that they are being included in the spaces instead of just citizens. In Taiwan, the national healthcare protects all residents, not just citizens.

Audrey Tang: Even if they are what we call a illegal migrant worker who’s visa have expired maybe long ago, we make sure that they can get, for example, free vaccination and with a complete protection against them being investigated or being deported. This is just, again, to make everyone feel that they are being included.

Audrey Tang: Of course, the concourse in the Taipei main station, many people especially people from the cultures where it feels more natural to sit on the ground often during the weekends bring some pillows or something and socialize on the ground.

Audrey Tang: But for cultures that did not get used to sitting on the ground, sometimes it makes a lot of tension seeing other people behaving this way, saying that they are blocking the way that we need to get to our trains and things like that.

Audrey Tang: The way we resolved that is not any top-down decree, but rather what we call a collaborative consultation meeting. We held, I think, two public conversations, public panels and another two NGO-moderated space scenario design workshops.

Audrey Tang: We agreed, as I mentioned, the common value that a public space need to be in public use and it needs public participation.

Audrey Tang: This participation then resulted in the common value of inviting people to sit with this symbolism with smile and everybody feels happy and included, because then, the space clearly demarks the places for sitting, but not the more on the margins where people do actually need to get to their trains. It’s inclusive but also pragmatic.

Audrey Tang: I think it’s implemented last July and the social response to that was very good.

Miku Sano: Thank you. After creating the space where they can sit and enjoy the weekend in the station, but at the same time, the people who are rushing to this train can…There was a discussion and then meeting in the middle and created a consensus.

Audrey Tang: Yes, that’s exactly right. It’s shaped like a chessboard. In the chessboard squares, these are the squares to sit like a shape of pillows, and in the margin of the chessboard are straight lines and thus suggest it’s a place for walking quickly.

Miku Sano: I see. When you talk about it, it sounded so easy. It makes sense, but I guess if so many people in different so many interests getting into the conversation, it may be difficult to get to the common barrier or the solution.

Audrey Tang: There’s a saying saying there’s nothing about us without us. Anything that concerns any group of people, any culture, need early participation from that culture. It’s not on a one-on-one basis like a focus group only, but rather a deliberative space where everyone can hear about the real cultural differences but also common values of the other groups.

Audrey Tang: If we just run some surveys where people filling in the survey did not have the first-hand experience of sitting down or standing up and having a conversation with people from different cultures and different abilities, then it’s very difficult to innovate. To innovate you first need to understand the real requirements of people.

Audrey Tang: This co-creation rests on the idea that we’re working not for the people, we’re working with the people. We hold ourself to implement whatever the people are comfortable with instead of saying, “Oh, we already have an idea, and the people are just here as our vendor, or BOT, just as procurement partners.” No. It’s earlier than procurement. It’s on defining the values together.

Miku Sano: Getting people from the beginning to get their input.

Audrey Tang: Yes, that is entirely correct.

Miku Sano: Thank you. The Big Issue Japan has also aimed to create a safe space for homeless people. In your book, you have mentioned about the importance of having a place where you belong if you want to make a difference.

Audrey Tang: Yes, a safe space.

Miku Sano: Yeah, safe space. Could you, please, tell us a little more about this? Could you also tell us your story of finding such a place?

Audrey Tang: Certainly. Back when I was dropping out from the middle-high school when I was 15, my principal, head of my school, agreed only because she understand that the kind of research I want to do about building trust over the Internet and so on cannot be studied in the schools or in the universities at the time. It was such a very new field.

Audrey Tang: The worldwide web just started at the time. There’s no existing literature to study. In order to research, I have to create, to make new spaces in order to observe how people interact. Having understood that, she said, “OK, you don’t have to go to my school anymore and, because it’s mandatory education, I will protect you by, essentially, faking the records of my attendance.”

Audrey Tang: This is what I mean by a safe space. First, that my value, the research that I want to do, is affirmed by someone in the authority. Again, that someone from the authority then innovated on my behalf to think about ways to reconcile the values that I hold and the position that she was in.

Audrey Tang: Inspired by that and a few other homeschoolers around 1996, Taiwan would go on to implement the Asia’s most liberal homeschooling laws, the three experimental education laws, so that up to 10 percent of students can choose to homeschool or join a alternative school group or institution. This then paves the way of education reform.

Audrey Tang: Then these safe spaces, some practicing the German Waldorf Schule, some practicing Montessori, many be different education provide safe spaces for students who don’t fit in with the more traditional examination-based curriculum and want to explore autonomy-based, competence-based learning environments.

Audrey Tang: Afterward, we took what worked in the research community after 10 years and brought it into the institution and became, starting 2019, the new curriculum of basic education in Taiwan. This reform was done because we sought safe spaces where we can explore different ways to educate.

Audrey Tang: The safe spaces also meant not just isolating sanctuary. It’s more like a lab where when we have the results, we’re happy to share with the general society.

Miku Sano: Your own experience of having that safe space that was protected by the principal of the school.

Audrey Tang: Yes. She helped me to convince my parents and so on.

Miku Sano: Maybe that idea also helped other students, the younger generations came after you to have those safe environment to pursue the interest on studies. That would probably help Taiwan to afford the society for creating…

Audrey Tang: Yes. My point was the safe space is not to close off people’s possibilities but rather, like a lab environment, is meant to provide a safe space for innovations to grow. Once those innovations come out, then it’s shared with the entire society.

Miku Sano: If everyone has those safe space or the safe space protected to everybody, that would create more innovation or freedom of…

Audrey Tang: Yes, freedom of expression and sharing experiences together instead of having to fight each other on a zero-sum fashion. People can, at their own tempo, experience more interaction with the world, with the society. When they feel less safe, there is a safe space for them to retreat a little bit into.

Miku Sano: It is very important. Would you say that in Taiwan, maybe not everybody but people who wish to have those safe space, are they protected to have those?

Audrey Tang: We’re always working on that. For example, for people in wheelchairs, I believe Japan provides better universal access than Taiwan. Taiwan, we provide pretty good ones in the municipalities. We still need to work on the less-municipal places.

Audrey Tang: We’re getting there, but not quite where Japan is. That’s partly also because Japan is a more aging society than Taiwan. [laughs] We’re getting there. For example, on the other side, for LGBTIQ non-binary people, then Taiwan provides a better safe space compared to Japan.

Audrey Tang: In Japan, even women’s equality are still being fought for, let alone the LGBTIQ community. In Taiwan, a majority of our universities and my own office indeed provide the safe rooms for, for example, washrooms, restrooms. In my office, there’s one for men, one for women, one for gender-neutral, and one for wheelchair-friendly. It provides safe space for people who experience any kind of gender expressions. There’s no forced confrontation.

Audrey Tang: If you do not plan the building in such a way, then it can cause conflict between minority groups and other minority groups. Just like the concourse case, the space need to be designed with the safe space and interactions in mind. I wouldn’t say that Taiwan is 100 percent good or even better than Japan. I would say we both have some better aspects compared to each other that we can learn from.

Miku Sano: When you say safe space, it’s a concept. It can be applied to your mind or also the physical world?

Audrey Tang: Yes. It’s a place for sharing and to make sure that people feel safe enough to share their experience of vulnerability with other people that can understand and empathize with such vulnerabilities. It could be a digital space. It could be a physical space.

Miku Sano: I see. Thank you. After dropping out of junior high school, you stayed in Atayal village.

Audrey Tang: Yes, Tayal.

Miku Sano: Tayal village. Did you find the place for you there? What was the most memorable things about living with people?

Audrey Tang: The Atayal people taught me that an individual’s worth, how high a respect do people hold of them, depends on how much they give, how much they share rather than how much they own. It’s a very different model compared to more capitalistic societies, where when we say someone is worth this many dollars, it means that they can exclude other people from utilizing these resources.

Audrey Tang: They enjoy exclusive ownership of those assets. They can exclude other people from using it. It’s a very different view than someone is more a contributor to the society if they are able to give more to other people. Someone is judged by how much they give and contribute rather than how much they hoard, how much they own. That’s the most different thing that I have encountered.

Miku Sano: That experience has influenced, or did it?

Audrey Tang: Definitely. It has a direct input on me so that, for example, as you know that, all my writings, programs, photo, video of me, I relinquish all the copyright. Anyone can reuse this interview, for example, and make some hip-hop songs like the Dos Monos band did in Japan without my permission.

Audrey Tang: Normally, with the idea of intellectual property, that is to say copyright and so on, we need to wait until I’m dead for 70 years or something in order to freely use those assets in the public domain. Because I see my contribution not as assets but as contributions, so I want people to remix it as soon as possible, which is why I abandon, relinquish all the copyrights to my work.

Audrey Tang: That, I will say, has a direct inspiration in the conversations and in the experience I had in the indigenous culture including the Atayal.

Miku Sano: Thank you. I’d like to ask you about AI and democracy, a few questions. Could you, please, tell us about AI? You talked about AI being assistive intelligence. AI is to support people. How do we educate ourselves to live with AI?

Audrey Tang: Exactly how we live with eyeglasses or with fire. They are both assistive technologies. If you can’t see very well in the dark, you need a torch and you need an eyeglass. They are here to help us to see each other more clearly, but they are not here to replace us.

Audrey Tang: If I want to meet you and I need the eyeglass, I wouldn’t say my eyeglass replaced my eyes or my eyeglass replaced you. It makes no sense. Neither would a torch replace the people who gather under the torch. It’s not in a competitive relationship with people, is what I’m saying.

Audrey Tang: The eyeglass has two properties. First it’s aligned to my best interests. I can control when to take it off, when to put it up. It’s not sticky. It’s not sticked to my face. It’s not pushing unwanted advertisement to my eyes. It’s entirely aligned to my best interests.

Audrey Tang: Also, it’s accountable. If it’s broken, if it’s blurry, I can take it off and fix it myself or take it to a repair person down the street. I don’t have to reverse-engineer it. I don’t have to pay millions of dollars of license just to fix the eyeglass. It’s very accountable when it has bias and so on. I can fix it myself or my friends can fix it. It’s an open innovation. The same goes for fire.

Audrey Tang: Of course, fire is considerably more dangerous than an eyeglass. Fire has destroyed entire cities. We are in Taiwan and Japan. We know how bad fire gets for wooden, especially buildings. I don’t think eyeglass destroy any cities, so fire is more dangerous.

Audrey Tang: The way we handle the danger of fire is not to concentrate power to a few elites with the fire licenses. We’re not saying that. What we’re saying is that first, you have good building inspection materials, firefighting capability, and so on.

Audrey Tang: Second, we teach children to cook as early as possible, and so they learn how to responsibly use fire. They can handle some basic firefighting themselves. They understand how bad it can get very quickly. They learn good habits. When a drill comes, they know what to do, and so on.

Audrey Tang: Instead of concentrating power, it decentralizes power. Children as young as five years old can cook and share their recipes. That’s exactly how we must approach assistive intelligence like machine learning.

Miku Sano: I think it’s very inspiring, and also, I really agree with you. I think you’ve asked so many times this question. There are concerns that privacy of the individual is being monitored by the states by collecting the big data and using AI.

Miku Sano: What is needed to prevent this from happening and what exactly should be done? If there’s anything that already done in Taiwan, could you please tell us?

Audrey Tang: You mean the privacy versus the analysis of the data, is that correct?

Miku Sano: Yes. Advancing of artificial intelligence, or you call assistive intelligence. Also, because the big data being collected and usedd.

Audrey Tang: OK, I see. That’s a great question.

Miku Sano: There’s a fear in people who don’t trust government or that artificial intelligence as use of fire. Fire or eyeglass is a great example that you use, and I understood very clearly, but at the same time, I guess there’s a fear.

Audrey Tang: Yeah. I will use contact tracing as an example. I understand in Japan, many municipalities also tried different way to do contact tracing over digital means. There are email-based contact tracing. There is the Bluetooth-based called COCOA. There’s many other tools as well. Exactly the same conversation about privacy, data collection, and so on hampered the adoption of those tools.

Audrey Tang: Although I’m sure it also helped some of your contact tracers, I don’t think most Japanese contact tracer attribute their work to those digital tools. They may help in this case and that case, but it’s not something that everyone agrees that it helps significantly to everyone. If my understanding is wrong, please, tell me.

Audrey Tang: In Taiwan, our contact tracing is based on the very simple idea of sending toll-free text messages over SMS to the toll-free number 1922. People understood that it doesn’t take any app. You can just use your built-in camera. If you don’t have a camera on your phone, you can text a message immediately. If you can’t see very well, people entering the same venue can do it for you.

Audrey Tang: You can always still stamp or write your name way in. Even if you don’t know how to write your name, you can stamp your way in as well. It’s very inclusive in design. People also understood those SMS are not going to any Google, or Apple, or company. It’s not going to the state either. These are stored temporarily for four weeks in the telecom carrier.

Audrey Tang: The telecom carrier knows nothing about where those venues are. It’s a random 15-digit code. Only the venue owner and the QR code printer knows what does those 15 digit connect to which venue.

Audrey Tang: Through what we call privacy-enhancing technology, in this case, it’s distributed storage, multi-party design, people understand their privacy is protected even if one or two venues want to collect their phone number. By scanning the QR code, they make sure they only register to their telecom. The venue owner knows nothing about their phone number or anything else about them.

Audrey Tang: Their telecom learns nothing about the venue. At the end of day, only the contact tracer can put the puzzle together. In order to audit them, we offer a website where anyone can enter their phone and see which municipalities, which numbered contact tracer have accessed their records in the past four weeks. It’s mutual accountability.

Audrey Tang: The reason why I go into this detail is because it’s relying on components that are very well understood. Everyone understand how QR code works. Because people can always manually text the 15 digits, there is no opaqueness. It’s very transparent. All the actions are mutually accountable as well.

Audrey Tang: In just three days after this idea was invented by the civic technologist, there’s more than two million venues printing those QR codes. Since May, when we introduced it, there’s a third of a billion now who have used this. Only around 12 million or so have been looked upon by the contact tracers.

Audrey Tang: That shortened the contact tracing from, it used to take 24 hours, to 24 minutes if they’re using the SMS-based contact tracing. It’s very successful and toll-free too. I go into this detail because the idea of fire or eyeglass is based on this well-understood principles. If we invent new things during the pandemic, people will not trust that.

Audrey Tang: If we reuse existing, already well-trusted components, and the innovation is in how to put them together, then people understand, “Oh, yes, this we understood.” Also as important is it’s not a enterprise business idea.

Audrey Tang: It’s not a government idea. It’s invented by the very people who care about human right, and privacy, and data sovereignty. It’s invented by the social sector. Of course, it has more trust. People understood it’s not in it for profit. It’s in it just for the purpose.

Miku Sano: The people who balance those collecting data is very important. Also, you said if I want to check who had access to my data, I can also see it. That also makes it more transparent and trustworthy. Not only one party can have a look at it. I could also check who’s been looking at my data.

Audrey Tang: Exactly. It’s mutual accountability.

Miku Sano: In Japan, “my number”, people are suspicious of getting connected to those systems. They fear that it might be used to be taken advantage of. Thank you. I have five more minutes to ask questions.

Miku Sano: There are various programs in society. You said that inclusion, innovation, and sustainability are important cures for solving this. Where did this idea come from? Where are we now? Where should we aim for?

Audrey Tang: This idea came from my own experience of not being included in many of the existing institutions. As someone who is non-binary in gender, every time I need to choose one from two check box, I feel not included. It’s a daily experience for me.

Audrey Tang: When I was a young child, I write with my left hand. At that time, because people relied on writing, and calligraphy, and so on, I was taught that I need to switch to my right hand. Again, I was not feeling very included. I learned to type very quickly one year after that.

Audrey Tang: These lived-in experience of mine said to me that in order to overcome this marginalizing experience, it’s not about fighting for more room. Rather, it’s about innovating a new way of interaction like typing with both hands. Suddenly, which hand you write with is not important anymore.

Audrey Tang: To design the spaces to be more universal in nature, it came from my own personal experience to strive for that. In the future, the rallying idea is still nothing about us without us. Instead of the government designing for the marginalized people, we need to design with the marginalized people, the same as the concourse case you mentioned.

Miku Sano: You mentioned that it came from your own experience. Instead of somebody thinking for the people, if it coming from the people who are feeling disadvantaged or marginalized, it would create better solution for that problem and also advancing that problem.

Audrey Tang: Yes. To empower the people who are the closest to the pain.

Miku Sano: You mentioned the word positive freedom. It’s the idea that we think the upgrade freedom of human being. Could you explain positive freedom and what is essential for people to be able to share or own such freedom in the future?

Audrey Tang: It’s not my idea. It came from Isaiah Berlin. It’s from the book “Two Concepts of Liberty” in 1958. Isaiah Berlin defined the negative liberty and the positive liberty or freedoms. It’s the same thing. As I mentioned, the negative freedoms is saying that we’re free from something. We’re not enslaved by external resources. We’re free from the oppression, and coercion, and things like that.

Audrey Tang: Positive freedom means that I’m free to do something. It’s not just free from the external pressure. It means that internally, I feel empowered that I can act. That is very different. There is this concept called learned helplessness, meaning that people who feel disempowered, they are powerless to do anything.

Audrey Tang: Then you remove all the negative constraints like freeing a caged bird since birth, freeing it from the cage. Still, the bird would not fly. That is not because the bird lacks negative freedom. There’s negative freedom all around. It’s because it lacks positive freedom, that is the will and the intention, and the belief in itself that it can exercise flight.

Audrey Tang: I think that idea is very powerful because it means that in order to progress as a society, we need to have more citizens create, that is to say, to contribute, instead of just listen, or watch, or read, or consume, which are more passive. It’s important that everyone can contribute a little bit into the everyday experience to better each other’s lives.

Miku Sano: Thank you. Can I have one more question?

Audrey Tang: Yes, of course.

Miku Sano: A system called primary democracy could be classified as primitive in the Internet age. PDIS, Public Digital Innovation Space…

Audrey Tang: Yeah, it’s my office.

Miku Sano: Yes, participation officer and JOIN, J-O-I-N, established as a direct participation tool to overcome the weakness in direct democracy. Is that correct, and if the JOIN will recognize and prioritize these as an important platform?

Audrey Tang: Yes, along with, of course, the referendums. We are going to have a national referendum the day after tomorrow. [laughs] They are binding for two years. People are taking it very seriously. We have a voting day, the referendum day. It’s not mayor election or presidential election. It’s just for direct democracy.

Audrey Tang: People are taking all those direct democracies platforms very seriously. I don’t think they are here to replace representative democracy. It’s more like augmenting, complimenting indirect democracy. The problem with indirect democracy, mostly, is that it doesn’t respond to the here and now very quickly.

Audrey Tang: It operates on the cycle of four years, or a budget is operating on the yearly cycle. The regulations, and so on, compared to the lawmakings, the regulations are freer to be changed. I think Japan has the same system, the continental law system, where it takes forever to change a law but relatively quickly for interpretation, or a regulation, or a city-wide regulation to change.

Audrey Tang: Basically, what we’re saying is that the direct participation by the citizens is better if it’s operating on this faster level to make sure that we don’t have to wait for four years in order to effect change. Rather, we need to get into the habit of participation on a continuous day-to-day basis.

Audrey Tang: But it doesn’t mean that we don’t vote for our president. I don’t think anyone is advocating that we can replace our president with a e-democracy platform. Nobody is actually proposing that at the moment.

Audrey Tang: At the moment, it’s basically allows two things. First, more day-to-day participation and better informed citizenry. Second, after people participate continuously, then it enable people who are affected by the state, by the policies to speak for themselves instead of having to wait for someone to represent them.

Audrey Tang: The second part is especially important if they are younger than 18 years old or if they are non-citizens. They’re just residents. That is to say, if they can’t vote for their councilor or legislator, then those direct participation platform become really the only way they have access to democracy. This is also important on inclusive spirit.

Miku Sano: You say that the both are very important. If they work together, it’s better.

Audrey Tang: Yes. For ideation, for thinking about new ideas, and for getting to common ground, getting common values, direct participatory democracy, of course, works better. But for having a consistency in the design of the actual products of laws and so on, then, of course, representative systems has its merits and also for its implementation on the executive branch.

Audrey Tang: I can say that participatory democracy can make better norms and values. Then the representative democracy takes that and makes better laws and budgets.

Miku Sano: The last one, finally, could you give a message to young people in Japan?

Audrey Tang: I will always quote Leonard Cohen said, “Ring the bells that still can ring. Forget your perfect offering. There is a crack, a crack in everything, and that is how the light gets in.” So be the light. Anything that you feel injustice in the world, those are the cracks in which you as the light will shine through. We can all bring a little bit of future to the current day by acting as the light through the cracks.

Audrey Tang: Thank you for the very good questions.

Miku Sano: Thank you so much. There’s lot of young people in Japan that needs that confidence and that belief in they can do something to contribute to society. I think the message is strong for people who are not sure what they can do in the society. So thank you so much.

Audrey Tang: Thank you.

Miku Sano: Thank you so much for your time.

Audrey Tang: Thank you. Live long and prosper. Bye.

Miku Sano: Bye. Thank you.