CDT POLICY POST Volume 8, Number 2, February 21, 2002

A BRIEFING ON PUBLIC POLICY ISSUES AFFECTING CIVIL LIBERTIES ONLINE
from
THE CENTER FOR DEMOCRACY AND TECHNOLOGY

CONTENTS:

(1) Call For Best Practices, Cases Studies And Papers For E-gov Toolkit

(2) The Concept And Tools Of E-government

(3) The Elements Of Effective E-government

(4) The Challenges And Opportunities Of E-government

(1) CALL FOR BEST PRACTICES, CASES STUDIES AND PAPERS FOR E-GOV TOOLKIT

CDT, in association with the World Bank's InfoDev Program, is looking for best practices, case studies and papers for inclusion in a toolkit to guide the evolution of electronic government in developing countries.

The toolkit is intended to be used by technology and policy leaders in the developing world to design their own e-government projects.

Procedure: Send in your success stories, models, guides, etc, through the online form at: http://www.cdt.org/egov/submissions.shtml. Submissions for this toolkit must be of practical value. We ask that you designate your submission as either a best practice/case example or an overview/paper.

Best practices and case examples should highlight how e-gov principles have been applied to specific projects in the developing world. We are looking for examples that provide good models for developing countries to follow.
Overviews and papers should provide generalized guidance to those who are embarking on e-government, providing advance warnings of the pitfalls but also highlighting the opportunities and cost savings available. We are looking for papers that include accountability as part of the the e-government framework.

Submission deadline: March 31, 2002

Questions about the project, submission process, or outline should be sent to egovernment@cdt.org. [Submissions sent to this address will be accepted, but we would prefer you to use the Web submission system].

(2) THE CONCEPT AND TOOLS OF E-GOVERNMENT

E-government is the application of information and communication technology to transform the efficiency, effectiveness, transparency and accountability of informational and transactional exchanges within government, between governments and government agencies at federal, municipal and local levels, citizens and businesses; and to empower citizens through access and use of information.

There are three phases of E-Government:

The "PUBLISH" phase -- tools that facilitate broader access to government information using information and communications technologies.
The "INTERACT" phase -- tools that promote broader public involvement in participatory government.
The "TRANSACT" phase -- tools that make government services available using information and communication technologies.

(3) THE ELEMENTS OF EFFECTIVE E-GOVERNMENT

E-government is much more than creating government Web sites. In planning for the E-gov toolkit, CDT assembled an international advisory board who identified a set of key issues that must be addressed in order to make e-government successful.

Process development: Critical to the success of e-government transformation is the understanding that e-government is not just about the automation of existing process and inefficiencies. Conversely, it is about the creation of new processes and new relationships between governed and governor.
Leadership: In order to manage this change, leaders who understand technology and policy goals will be needed at all levels through government, from elected through to administrative levels.
Strategic investment: Governments will need to prioritize some programs over others to maximize available funds in view of tightly limited resources. This will necessitate a clear objective for programs and a clear route to that objective.
Public policy and law: New technologies have already thrown up a minefield of legal and policy questions. If e-government and e-commerce are to be successful, legislatures must be wary of short-term solutions. They must also take proactive steps to ensure that good intentions are backed up with policy commitment.
Collaboration: Governments will have to explore new relationships with the private sector and NGOs to ensure quality and delivery of government services. Some agencies may also have to overcome traditional reluctance to work with each other to maximize benefits of scale in e-government projects.
Civic engagement: E-government initiatives depend, to some extent, on an engaged citizenry and to that end, efforts to foster civic engagement are critical to the success of e-government plans.

(4) THE CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES OF E-GOVERNMENT

The process e-government tools and systems often means facing new kinds of challenges. Developing countries, in particular, have many barriers to overcome. Confronting these challenges directly can be a means to turn these difficulties into new opportunities. Our e-government toolkit is looking for responses to the following concerns:

Development: All countries implementing e-government have struggled to develop a basic infrastructure to take advantage of new technologies and communications tools. This often includes problems of literacy and e-literacy.
Accessibility: Governments must serve all members of society irrespective of their physical capabilities. In many countries more than one language or dialect will be prevalent -- setting appropriate standards for accessibility will be difficult. New services will have to be designed with appropriate interfaces -- this may have significant cost implications. The "digital divide" and disability issues are also continuing accessibility concerns.
Privacy: Privacy is one of the fastest growing issue internationally. Governments are entrusted with huge amounts of personal information and must be a responsible custodian.
Security: Security is costly but security breaches shatter public trust in government.
Transparency: Government must be transparent in different ways to the private sector. This will be reflected in their choice and designs of ICT systems.
Interoperability: Adding new systems on top of outmoded and legacy systems has been problematic for the private sector and will, in all likelihood, be problematic for the government sector.
Records management: New technologies are being created to help manage information. Governments have unique needs in this field. Historical documentation is of special importance for governments.
Education and marketing: E-government services are only useful if people know about them. Education and outreach programs will be needed. As the boundaries of the state become blurrier, new rules may be needed to govern the relationship of the public and private sectors.
Public/private competition/collaboration: Issues of public vs private collaboration and competition are already part of an international debate on governance. E-government steps into a difficult area.
Intergovernmentalism: Transforming government means individuals should be served by the easiest and most efficient means possible. But, this could raise serious constitutional and political issues about the relationship between states/provinces, federal government, (where applicable) local government, and the international community.
Workforce issues: Human resources planning needs to be structured with the new goals in mind.
Cost structures: Investment now, savings later. But planning and budgeting in an unstable climate is difficult.

We are planning to compile the toolkit in online, CD and printed versions, with indexing and searching capabilities that allow best practices and other materials to be correlated to the foregoing issues.

Detailed information about online civil liberties issues may be found at http://www.cdt.org/.

This document may be redistributed freely in full or linked to http://www.cdt.org/publications/pp_8.02.shtml.

Excerpts may be re-posted with prior permission of ari@cdt.org