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Plans to use artificial intelligence to improve public services across a range of Government departments are currently being considered – alongside the development of a framework to ensure a "secure, ethical and responsible roll-out" of the technology.
Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham said that the changes, which would be subject to ministerial approval, formed part of "ongoing service improvement activities".
The news comes just over a year after the Estonian ambassador to the United Kingdom visited the island and spoke at a Digital Jersey event.
Estonia is the tech capital of the Europe, and has moved 99% of its public services online – including electronic voting.
PicturedL His excellency Viljar Lubi, Ambassador of Estonia to the UK, came to the island last year and spoke at a Digital Jersey event.
At the time, Viljar Lubi highlighted the potential for digital technology to improve public services, solve recruitment issues and reduce waiting times.
Responding to a written question from Deputy Max Andrews about the use of AI technology in the public sector, Deputy Farnham said: "AI is being considered to improve public services in a number of areas across departments as part of ongoing service improvement activities."
He continued: "Before AI technology is implemented, it is essential to adopt a framework and a supporting policy that will ensure secure, ethical and responsible roll-out.
"These are under development, and subject to ministerial approval, and are due to be ready by the end of Q1 2025."
Deputy Farnham explained that the Government was doing so with an initial focus on "the development of an AI policy and supporting standards".
"This will enable departments to identify appropriate opportunities to deploy AI and realise associated efficiencies in future," he added.
Pictured: Chief Minister Lyndon Farnham said the Government was targeting improvements to digital services.
Deputy Farnham also recently revealed that the Government is seeking to grow the use of its digital services – including through the introduction of a central profile allowing islanders to update their information for use by different departments.
He told Express that he hoped the improvements would be implemented over the next two to three years.
Deputy Farnham said: “The Government’s plan is to build more accessible digital services and more resilient supporting infrastructure in order to increase the use of online services.”
He added that the improvements being worked on included a single, central profile that would eventually allow people to view and manage their government data – initially encompassing tax rates, incapacity benefits and immigration information.
The Chief Minister explained that there would also be a simplified “tell us once” process, enabling users to update their core data, such as address and contact details, for use by a number of Government departments.
Islanders will also be able to book and manage appointments with Government, initially focused on services run by Customer and Local Services.
Deputy Farnham continued: “The aim is for islanders to have better access to the digital information the Government holds about them, and more flexibility to update it and use online bookings for appointments in future."
He added: "In addition, there are plans to continue improvements through the Digital Health programme, Electronic Voter Registration project and Cyber Security programme.”
Pictured: At the end of February, the Hospital's main IT system and its emergency back-up both failed in a “critical incident” which left some wards with no working computers.
It comes after it emerged that a "critical incident" in the Health IT system earlier this year was just one of "a number of Priority 1 system outage incidents" across Government computer networks.
Officials refused to confirm how many other incidents there had been, but did reveal that the outages prompted a two-and-a-half month ban on new IT systems and system changes across Government.
An investigation into the underlying causes of the Health IT issue is in the "final stages of being concluded".
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