How IT can help fight corruption
Crosspost with LJ
Maybe I’ll write banal and obvious thoughts to someone, but they visited me only today and seem to me quite logical, correct and timely.
One of the main problems of Russia now is corruption or corrupt officials. And no one knows how to deal with them. Even sentences such as mass executions or cutting off hands for bribes are heard.
Classical democracy makes it possible to solve this problem using the basic principle of democracy - the principle of separation of powers. Officials are the executive branch, but there is also a legislative branch, which must pass laws against corruption. There is also the judiciary, which should rightly condemn bribe-taking officials. Finally, there are mass media that can reveal the machinations of officials and create problems for them.
In Russia, however, some “ sovereign democracy ” is rampant, where the principle of separation of powers simply does not work, because “Russia has its own way”. Everyone knows that all the “authorities” in Russia are closely intertwined and often do not make out who writes the laws and who executes them, let alone the lazy people did not speak about independent courts and the media. Is there a chance that within the framework of sovereign democracy one can at least partially overcome corruption? Is there any chance that an anti-corruption law will finally be passed? Is this law necessary at all?
I had an idea how to partially overcome the most unpleasant for ordinary citizens and, perhaps, the most expensive type of corruption - extortions of minor officials. And it can and should happen by itself in the near future. Occur due to us - IT professionals.
')
The idea is simple to disgrace and therefore must be correct. If someone has a reasonable objection - please share in comments. I am writing here about minor officials - it is better to learn from Singapore to fight against large bribes, but this is another story.
What makes it possible for small officials to take bribes? How to remove this opportunity (not to fight bribery, but to remove the very cause of bribes)? How to reduce the number of officials at the same time?
All the minor officials I came across and paid bribes live by accessing state information. State information is all sorts of extracts from different places, for example
- Registration Information
- Information about family composition
- Information about diseases, vaccinations, certificates from dispensaries and other medical documents.
- Information on accidents, car registration, etc.
- etc.
All this information is now stored in paper form or on separate computers and you have to go and receive it from the right official from hand to hand - this creates a lot of official jobs in each city and at the same time huge queues and opportunities for bribes. In fact, bribes are not paid for any particular work of an official, not for the service “standing in line”, etc. - A bribe is paid FOR ACCESS TO INFORMATION. Do you personally need this information?
But the 21st century is in the yard, why do we need pieces of paper that are already invalid in a month and need to be received anew?
And now let's imagine that Russia has finally created a unified state database and any information can be obtained from any official. Will you now need these certificates of registration, of an accident, of the number of children, of salary, of disability, etc.? Not! You will be able to immediately come to the right official to solve his case, and he will be able to get all the necessary information and references from this database.
For example, you will not need to collect 10 different papers in different places to get compensation for the birth of a child. Or hanging pension. Or to get a passport or driver's license. Moreover, after a small development, the system itself will be able to determine that it is time for you to charge a new compensation or cancel the old one, or change the rights, or send a car tax, etc., to pay ... And you don’t even have to go anywhere - the letter will come by mail straight to your home.
Fantasy? No - it already works in Finland and there is the lowest level of corruption in the world!
Moreover, this system will reduce the number of such back-ups, because a dozen system administrators and several large servers with a database will be able to replace several tens or even hundreds of thousands of these useless reference writers.
Is it profitable? Is it expensive to create and implement such a system? How long can it take? Now these are more political questions.
But the most difficult and slippery question is - what if the officials recognize the threat to their well-being and just let the creation of this database go to rest? Well, let it be that paperwork in Russia will be paper, and electronic around the world - but you can take bribes.
Maybe I’ll write banal and obvious thoughts to someone, but they visited me only today and seem to me quite logical, correct and timely.
One of the main problems of Russia now is corruption or corrupt officials. And no one knows how to deal with them. Even sentences such as mass executions or cutting off hands for bribes are heard.
Classical democracy makes it possible to solve this problem using the basic principle of democracy - the principle of separation of powers. Officials are the executive branch, but there is also a legislative branch, which must pass laws against corruption. There is also the judiciary, which should rightly condemn bribe-taking officials. Finally, there are mass media that can reveal the machinations of officials and create problems for them.
In Russia, however, some “ sovereign democracy ” is rampant, where the principle of separation of powers simply does not work, because “Russia has its own way”. Everyone knows that all the “authorities” in Russia are closely intertwined and often do not make out who writes the laws and who executes them, let alone the lazy people did not speak about independent courts and the media. Is there a chance that within the framework of sovereign democracy one can at least partially overcome corruption? Is there any chance that an anti-corruption law will finally be passed? Is this law necessary at all?
I had an idea how to partially overcome the most unpleasant for ordinary citizens and, perhaps, the most expensive type of corruption - extortions of minor officials. And it can and should happen by itself in the near future. Occur due to us - IT professionals.
')
The idea is simple to disgrace and therefore must be correct. If someone has a reasonable objection - please share in comments. I am writing here about minor officials - it is better to learn from Singapore to fight against large bribes, but this is another story.
What makes it possible for small officials to take bribes? How to remove this opportunity (not to fight bribery, but to remove the very cause of bribes)? How to reduce the number of officials at the same time?
All the minor officials I came across and paid bribes live by accessing state information. State information is all sorts of extracts from different places, for example
- Registration Information
- Information about family composition
- Information about diseases, vaccinations, certificates from dispensaries and other medical documents.
- Information on accidents, car registration, etc.
- etc.
All this information is now stored in paper form or on separate computers and you have to go and receive it from the right official from hand to hand - this creates a lot of official jobs in each city and at the same time huge queues and opportunities for bribes. In fact, bribes are not paid for any particular work of an official, not for the service “standing in line”, etc. - A bribe is paid FOR ACCESS TO INFORMATION. Do you personally need this information?
But the 21st century is in the yard, why do we need pieces of paper that are already invalid in a month and need to be received anew?
And now let's imagine that Russia has finally created a unified state database and any information can be obtained from any official. Will you now need these certificates of registration, of an accident, of the number of children, of salary, of disability, etc.? Not! You will be able to immediately come to the right official to solve his case, and he will be able to get all the necessary information and references from this database.
For example, you will not need to collect 10 different papers in different places to get compensation for the birth of a child. Or hanging pension. Or to get a passport or driver's license. Moreover, after a small development, the system itself will be able to determine that it is time for you to charge a new compensation or cancel the old one, or change the rights, or send a car tax, etc., to pay ... And you don’t even have to go anywhere - the letter will come by mail straight to your home.
Fantasy? No - it already works in Finland and there is the lowest level of corruption in the world!
Moreover, this system will reduce the number of such back-ups, because a dozen system administrators and several large servers with a database will be able to replace several tens or even hundreds of thousands of these useless reference writers.
Is it profitable? Is it expensive to create and implement such a system? How long can it take? Now these are more political questions.
But the most difficult and slippery question is - what if the officials recognize the threat to their well-being and just let the creation of this database go to rest? Well, let it be that paperwork in Russia will be paper, and electronic around the world - but you can take bribes.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/30719/
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