20 | Annual Report 2019 For all these reasons, it is vital that digital solutions are designed from the beginning in such a way that the solutions meet the administrative legal requirements. The Ombudsman’s role At the Ombudsman institution, we are currently considering how the Ombudsman in the best possible way can contribute to ensure that administrative law and citizens’ legal rights are included concurrently with the development of digital solutions. It is not the ordinary role of the Ombudsman to contribute to the design of the public administration’s systems in relation to for example record-keeping and case processing. And, as already mentioned, it is always the responsibility of the authorities themselves that the systems observe the administrative legal requirements. The Ombudsman is usually the last step in the process when it comes to checking whether decisions already reached by the authorities are legitimate and correct. The principle that the Ombudsman conducts an ex post control and does not take part in the authority’s own decision-making process is for good reasons a well-established principle. But precisely as far as development of digital solutions is concerned, we are currently considering how we can contribute in the best possible way within this special field so that the authorities can thoroughly consider the solutions from a legal point of view at an early stage. This is a difficult exercise since the Ombudsman is not (and should not be) a design body but a control body. But this is also an extremely important exercise. Because, if used correctly, digital solutions can contribute to ensuring correct decisions and increase the service provided by the public administration to citizens. My ambition is that the Ombudsman institution in the best possible way – within the scope of the Ombudsman’s authority – supports that society can reap the benefits of this huge potential but only without causing damage to citizens’ legal rights during the process.