No civic technological literacy infrastructure for adults
UK digital-skills provision teaches consumption, using apps and spotting scams, and the schools pipeline gets AI literacy from 2028. No institution teaches adults comprehension of the systems they are governed by: what end-to-end encryption actually guarantees, what a verifiable record is, how age verification and digital ID architectures differ in what they expose, what self-custody means. Public debates on the Online Safety Act, digital ID and CBDC proceed with citizens unable to evaluate claims, and communities cannot maintain infrastructure they do not understand. Digital-inclusion charities target basic access, and nobody owns civic comprehension.
Technology people do not understand is technology they cannot meaningfully trust or challenge, and a community that wants to run its own infrastructure needs members who understand it. Adoption of every other sovereignty gap on this map is blocked by this one.
A civic technology literacy programme: an open curriculum covering encryption, verification, identity architectures and custody, train-the-trainer delivery through libraries, unions, faith groups and community organisations, and a UK network of community technologists, modelled on citizens-advice reach rather than university outreach.
// Build now: First artefact: open civic-technology curriculum plus train-the-trainer pack; libraries, unions, community groups deliver voluntarily, no gatekeeper.
Digital-ID, Online Safety Act and CBDC debates proceed with citizens unable to evaluate claims, and nobody owns adult civic comprehension or a delivery instrument.
claims & evidence · 3
// each factual claim in this entry, its source, and when it was last checked. Unresolved attributions are flagged rather than hidden. Challenge any of them on the thread below.
- 218.1reportedchecked 2026-07-07The schools computing curriculum adds AI literacy from 2028.BCS's account; the DfE curriculum documents are the primary source to add.
- 218.2verifiedchecked 2026-07-07UK adult digital-skills provision teaches consumption: using apps, basic access and spotting scams.The leading provider's own programme scope establishes the orientation.
- 218.3verifiedchecked 2026-07-07No institution teaches adults comprehension of the systems they are governed by: what encryption guarantees, what a verifiable record is, how identity architectures differ, what self-custody means.Absence claim. Checked Good Things Foundation, library digital offers, WEA and union-education curricula; civic comprehension of this kind appears in none of them.