Governments and regulators are navigating a challenging path between capturing the opportunities of rapidly evolving digital technologies and managing their associated risks. Regulatory governance plays an important role in striking this balance—steering digital technologies towards responsible development, use and outcomes, while providing support for sustainable growth and innovation.
Better Regulation in the Digital Age (BRIDGE)
The Better Regulation in the Digital Age (BRIDGE) initiative aims to promote effective regulatory governance of digital activities and to support countries in leveraging digital technologies for better regulation. BRIDGE was launched by the Regulatory Policy Division of the OECD Public Governance Directorate in December 2023 as a platform for knowledge development and to build practical tools to assist policy makers and regulators in adapting to today’s rapid digital transformation.
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Context
The challenge
Digital technologies pose unprecedented challenges to regulatory governance. Their rapid development creates uncertainty over future impacts and challenges the responsiveness of regulatory regimes. Additionally, the transboundary nature of the products and services offered, and network effects on other industries and public services, make it difficult to design targeted regulations, coordinate regulatory governance and enforcement activities and establish accountability and transparency over outcomes.
There is a need to understand how to adapt and apply regulatory tools and processes to digital activities, and to support governments in leveraging these technologies to achieve effective and proportionate regulatory responses.
Project relevance
The BRIDGE initiative helps regulatory policy makers navigate the digital age through two lenses:
First, the initiative supports governments and regulators in adapting their regulatory systems to the unprecedented challenges of regulating digital activities. For example, considering the use of risk-informed, technology neutral regulatory practices and informing regulatory adjustments fit for digital technologies.
Second, BRIDGE helps governments leverage the opportunities of using digital technologies to enhance the efficiency and effectiveness of regulatory management tools, such as stakeholder engagement and regulatory impact assessments.
BRIDGE advances these objectives via three core activities:
Connecting regulatory policy expertise with global conversations on digital activities: BRIDGE convenes regular Expert Group meetings and engages in global conferences to drive knowledge exchange and shared learning.
Bridging gaps between digital risks and regulatory outcomes with digestible guidance and tools, and through a knowledge building working paper series to support policy makers.
Advising and supporting governments in designing and delivering regulatory policies through evidence-led expertise: BRIDGE provides tailored support to governments and partners on issues ranging from regulatory governance of Artificial Intelligence to digital-ready legislation.
Latest publications
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63 PagesPolicymakers regulating the digital economy face a difficult question: not only whether to intervene, but how to do so proportionately, balancing innovation against fast-evolving risks. This paper helps navigate that choice. It develops a methodology positioning regulatory models on a spectrum – from command-and-control, through performance-based regulation, market-based mechanisms and co-regulation, to different forms of self-regulation – categorised by their flexibility and the roles public and private actors play across the regulatory process. This enables structured comparison, clarifies trade-offs, and supports design of blended approaches combining different models. The paper offers criteria for model selection based on impact on innovation, market and private actor characteristics, and public institutional readiness. Applied to the digital economy, it finds that governments increasingly rely on blended models, with public actors retaining responsibility for setting regulatory objectives, while delegating the means of achieving them and regulatory delivery to private actors, under public oversight and accountability.Learn more
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63 PagesThis working paper examines whether lessons from financial sector regulation can inform the regulatory governance of the digital transformation. Drawing on case studies from the Great Financial Crisis of 2008-2010 and the emergence of digital finance, the study identifies six challenges: information asymmetries between supervisory authorities and market participants; systemic risk recognition; regulatory adaptability; path dependencies arising from the timing of intervention; regulatory effectiveness; and international co-ordination. For each challenge, the paper derives lessons and assesses their relevance for the digital economy. The analysis reveals substantial structural parallels between the two domains, while identifying factors that amplify regulatory challenges in digital contexts – including the speed of technological change, the opacity of algorithmic systems, cross-sectoral business models, and accelerated path dependencies. The paper concludes that effective governance of the digital transformation demands resource commitments commensurate with those required for post-crisis financial sector reform.Learn more
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55 PagesThis paper presents a mapping tool for governments to systematically assess, identify and bridge gaps in regulatory governance as applied to digital technologies. It describes how the mapping tool was built and piloted, highlighting definitional and methodological considerations. The paper then details each component of the tool, including findings from applying the tool to a sample of thirteen whole-of-government efforts to regulate artificial intelligence (AI). Finally, the paper provides further insights that can be drawn from using the mapping tool, presents a more systematic application of the tool to digital technology regulations, and outlines next steps to promote application of the mapping tool.Learn more