Proportional control?

摘要

In modern societies, legal regulations define legal norms within a wide range of life situations; from accepting paternity to paying inheritance tax. Along with every regulation, detailed and complicated requirements are often defined for us to follow, and it is considered criminal not to observe them. Due to the complexity of rules and regulations in modern sources, control measures within fields where ordinary people interact with decision-making bodies may create uncertainty among and resistance by “law-abiding citizens”. This article will focus on control measures within Norwegian public mass administration. An important characteristic of these systems is that many of the legal rules which govern them and which are traditionally found in paper format have been transformed into computer program code. I will explicitly refrain from addressing issues concerning police investigation, state security, and control in situations where providing services (health, education, etc.) constitutes the main activity. When control is discussed in this context, control of both the computerized and manual routines is important because they are so closely connected. Information technology makes available a range of new control measures for ensuring that citizens submit correct information in the course of a decision-making process and the focus here is on this use of information technology.