GCRI · Fields across the Consortium
Digital public infrastructure
Digital public infrastructure (identity, payments and data exchange run for a whole population) can widen access dramatically. With weak safeguards, it can also become a single point of failure, exclusion or surveillance.
01Three mandates
The field, seen three ways.
02Simulator
A cascade through interdependent networks.
A hazard footprint takes out co-located assets in every layer; fragmentation, dependency between layers and overload of the survivors then spread the failure. The 3D view separates the layers by depth. Teaching model with stated illustrative values, not a prediction.
Controls
- Assets per layer
- 18
- Hazard footprint
- 8% of area
- Assets that depend on another layer
- 60%
- Spare capacity (tolerance)
- 30%
Readouts
- Assets hit by the hazard
- 13%
- Assets still working
- 11%
- Amplification of the initial damage
- 6.9 times
- Steps to settle
- 3
Numbers, methods and sources
| Step | Data centres working (%) | Networks working (%) | Power working (%) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0 | 83 | 83 | 94 |
| 1 | 56 | 33 | 61 |
| 2 | 22 | 17 | 11 |
| 3 | 17 | 6 | 11 |
Methods
- Interdependent networks Buldyrev and others (2010), Catastrophic cascade of failures in interdependent networks, Nature 464
- Overload cascades Motter and Lai (2002), Physical Review E 66
- Betweenness load Brandes (2001), Journal of Mathematical Sociology 25
- Multilayer networks Kivela and others (2014), Journal of Complex Networks 2
- Infrastructure interdependencies Rinaldi, Peerenboom and Kelly (2001), IEEE Control Systems 21(6)
- Uncertainty fan (parameter Monte Carlo) Spiegelhalter, Pearson and Short (2011), Visualising uncertainty about the future, Science 333
- One-at-a-time sensitivity (tornado) Saltelli and others (2008), Global Sensitivity Analysis: The Primer, Wiley
Data
The model runs on the teaching values set by the controls. To calibrate it for a place, read it against these admitted layers and series, which this page’s map can draw:
- Major roads Natural Earth
- Railways Natural Earth
- Seaports Natural Earth
- Airports Natural Earth
- Urban extents Natural Earth
- Night lights tonight, outages (VIIRS Day/Night Band) NASA/NOAA VIIRS (Suomi NPP) · register nasa.gibs.context-live-layers
- Natural events (NASA EONET) NASA EONET · register nasa.eonet.events
Across the six pillars, led by Nexus Consortium
- Experiments Labs at GCRI: Labs
- Built in Foundry at GCRI: Foundry
- Tested at Universe at GCRI: Universe technical office
- Codified in Nexus Standards
- Published in Reports at GCRI: Publish
- Taught in Risk Academy
03The systemic question
Scale, safeguards and failure modes.
A national identity system or fast-payment rail serves everyone, so an outage, a data breach or an exclusion error is national in scale. The design choices that matter for risk are interoperability, data minimisation, grievance redress, vendor independence and the legal basis for each use. These are assessable before deployment.
- Exclusion: people without documents, connectivity or biometrics that read reliably.
- Concentration: one vendor or one data centre for a national rail.
- Function creep: data collected for one purpose used for another.
04Frameworks
Principles and safeguards.
| Framework or body | What it governs or supplies |
|---|---|
| Principles on Identification for Sustainable Development | Inclusion, design and governance of ID systems |
| Universal DPI Safeguards Framework | Safeguards for DPI design and operation |
| CPMI-IOSCO Principles for Financial Market Infrastructures | Payment system risk management |
| Global Digital Compact | Intergovernmental commitments on DPI and data governance |
05Couplings
DPI and the systems it carries.
- Cyber: national-scale attack surface.
- Society: social protection delivery and inclusion.
- Financial stability: fast-payment rails.
The science sits on Digital Public Infrastructure; methods start from digital identity.
06Grounding
The methods behind the field.
- Digital identity and public digital systems
- Data engineering, interoperability and stewardship
- Cybersecurity and cryptography
- Payment and financial market technology
- High-performance, cloud and edge computing
- Distributed ledgers and digital assets
- Artificial intelligence and machine learning
- AI evaluation and assurance engineering
- Policy, institutional and decision science
- Network science and contagion
- Reliability and resilience engineering
- Quantum computing, sensing and communication
07Sources
Where this page’s references lead.
The bodies and documents this page is read against. Status and editions change; each link goes to the issuing body.
08Questions
Questions and answers.
Why does GCRI host field gateways?
GCRI hosts the shared references of the Consortium, including the STEM Commons and the field gateways, so each field has one place that links all three institutions’ work.
ReportsContribute
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