Digital Governance and Personal Data Protection: Proposals for an Ethical Public Transformation through the Privacy-by-Design Approach

Introduction: this research examined the relationship between digital innovation in public administration and personal data protection, employing a Privacy-by-Design (PbD) approach. It assessed the extent to which government platforms incorporate ethical and legal aspects that guarantee data privacy and security.Methods: a qualitative study of Argentine public initiatives was conducted, combining three strategies: (i) visual exploration of the platforms from the user experience; (ii) manual and automated analysis of metadata on published datasets; and (iii) development of a prototype in Python to validate technical aspects linked to PbD principles, such as security settings, transparency, and basic privacy control mechanisms.Results: progress was observed in access to open public data and tools aimed at citizen transparency. However, the full incorporation of data protection principles remains a challenge, as evidenced by both manual analysis and automated testing of the prototype. Metadata analysis and technical evaluation revealed weaknesses in the design, particularly in privacy and the implementation of user-accessible control mechanisms.Conclusions: the results underscore the importance of integrating Privacy-by-Design into smart governance, thereby strengthening citizen trust in digital services and promoting more responsible and sustainable forms of governance. Design recommendations are presented that foster a paradigm shift in application development and regulatory standards for digital public innovation.