Reversibility Standards for Public Digital Infrastructure
Turning reversibility from a principle into an assessable procurement criterion, so accepting an irreversible commitment becomes a recorded decision rather than a default.
Our working paper argues that reversibility is the most tractable proxy for the interests of people who cannot participate in infrastructure decisions. This project turns that argument into something a procurement officer can score.
The work
- An assessment instrument covering discontinuation cost, data portability, component replaceability, specification legibility and decision record.
- Calibration against real infrastructure decisions, including several that proved difficult to reverse.
- A form of words allowing an authority to accept an irreversible commitment explicitly, with reasons recorded.
What we are not claiming
Reversibility costs efficiency, and it should not always win. The purpose is not to prevent irreversible decisions but to stop them being made by default and without record.
Status
Planned, following comment on the working paper. Comments on that paper directly shape this project’s design.
