Digital trust starts with software quality: A wake-up call for India's public tech infrastructure
Over the past decade, India has built one of the most ambitious digital public infrastructures in the world. Platforms like Aadhaar, UPI, DigiLocker, and CoWIN have redefined access to financial systems, healthcare, education, and public services—often at population scale. These systems have not only improved convenience but also enabled inclusion for millions. But as digital services become the default channel for citizen engagement, a deeper question emerges: Can people truly trust the digital platforms they rely on daily? And beneath that question lies a more fundamental one—how strong is the quality of the software powering them?
In today's interconnected and AI-infused world, software quality is no longer a backend concern. It's a front-line issue of national significance. Digital trust is the confidence citizens place in systems to work reliably, behave ethically, and protect their interests. While most conversations about trust revolve around cybersecurity and data privacy, the reliability and integrity of the software itself is often overlooked. When digital platforms fail—whether through crashes, silent errors, broken user flows, or biased algorithms—it's not just a technical glitch. It becomes a failure of public service delivery. And repeated failures chip away at public trust.
This is where software quality assurance (SQA) steps in—not as a box-checking step, but as a discipline that ensures systems are built with rigor, tested against edge cases, and monitored in real time. Quality is what makes software trustworthy, sustainable, and resilient.
Despite impressive digital infrastructure, India faces increasing challenges when it comes to ensuring consistent software quality across government services. Several systemic issues persist:
· Speed over stability: In the push to roll out services quickly, thorough testing is often sacrificed. Quick MVPs become long-term infrastructure without ever being hardened.
· Resource imbalances: Not all departments or vendors have access to experienced quality engineers or advanced testing tools.
· Fragmented standards: There's little uniformity in how quality is defined, measured, or enforced across public-facing platforms.
· Limited public feedback loops: Many systems lack user-facing feedback or error-reporting capabilities, limiting the ability to catch quality issues post-launch.
These are not minor operational hiccups—they are signals of deeper trust risks.
In early 2023, a glitch in a digital vaccination record portal resulted in thousands of users being issued incorrect certificates. A small bug—but one that delayed travel, employment, and access to medical care for many. The cost of such errors is not just technical debt—it's reputational damage. Similarly, citizens using poorly tested grievance redressal platforms or payment portals often face dead ends, duplicate charges, or misrouted submissions. Each of these undermines confidence not just in the app, but in the public institution behind it. In a world where digital systems mediate access to rights and resources, software quality is a public trust issue.
So how do we change this? The shift must be structural, not superficial. India needs a quality-first mindset across all stages of digital governance. Here are five concrete recommendations:
1. Institutionalise Quality Roles in Public Projects
Just as most government IT projects require cybersecurity audits, they should also include software quality engineering roles by default. These teams should have the authority to delay launches if critical issues remain unaddressed.
2. Standardise Quality Benchmarks Across Platforms
Government bodies should adopt global frameworks like ISO/IEC 25010 to consistently measure aspects like usability, reliability, maintainability, and performance. These benchmarks should be made transparent and public-facing.
3. Invest in Capacity Building
Training programmes for developers and testers should go beyond basics—incorporating AI testing, accessibility testing, performance engineering, and bias detection. India has a deep talent pool; quality needs to be part of their core upskilling.
4. Encourage Public-Private Collaboration on Quality Excellence
The private sector, especially in SaaS and fintech, has made significant strides in automated testing, CI/CD pipelines, and observability tools. Bringing these best practises into public systems can accelerate maturity—without compromising on accountability.
5. Close the Feedback Loop with Citizens
Platforms should integrate mechanisms for users to report issues and track their resolution. These 'digital quality audits' from the ground up can be a powerful tool for real-time improvement and public accountability.
Quality engineering is often seen as a behind-the-scenes effort—but that mindset must evolve. When governments build digital platforms, they're not just deploying code; they're shaping public experience, equity, and trust.
In fact, quality can become a competitive advantage for India's digital diplomacy. As nations around the world look to replicate UPI-like models or digital ID frameworks, India's ability to embed ethical, reliable, and inclusive software quality practises could become a global export in itself. Imagine a future where 'Built in India' also means 'Tested and Trusted by India.'
If citizens are expected to shift to digital-first access—whether for banking, healthcare, education, or voting—the burden of trust must be met with an equal commitment to quality. When a system breaks, people lose time. But when trust breaks, people disengage. India's digital journey has been bold and visionary. Now, it's time to ensure that the quality of that vision matches its scale. Software quality isn't just about writing better code—it's about honoring the public's faith in technology.
This article is authored by Gopinath Kathiresan, senior quality engineering manager, Apple.
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