Silke Sabitzer

Electronic Democracy & Electronic Government -

The Impact of Information Technology on
Democratic Powers
Table of content
1 Introduction......................................................................................................................................................1
2 Legal Framework............................................................................................................................................3
2.1 Democracy................................................................................................................................................3
2.2 International Regulations regarding Information Technology................................................................4
3 Electronic Democracy....................................................................................................................................5
3.1 Future scenario..........................................................................................................................................6
3.2 TV, Internet + Telephone = Electronic Democracy?..............................................................................8
3.2.1 Information technology as panacea for direct democracy.............................................................12
3.2.2 Initiative and Referendum..............................................................................................................13
3.3 Electronic Town Halls............................................................................................................................13
3.3.1 Examples of Electronic Town Hall Projects..................................................................................14
3.3.2 Potentials and Threats.....................................................................................................................16
3.4 Electronic Voting....................................................................................................................................19
3.4.1 Examples of Electronic Voting Systems........................................................................................20
3.4.2 System Performance.......................................................................................................................21
3.5 Proxy Voting...........................................................................................................................................23
4 Electronic Government................................................................................................................................24
4.1 Applications of Information Technology in the Public Sector..............................................................25
4.2 International Initiatives fostering the government use of Information Technology.............................28
4.2.1 IDA..................................................................................................................................................28
4.2.2 TESTA............................................................................................................................................29
4.2.3 G 8 Government On-Line Project..................................................................................................29
4.2.4 International GovNews Project......................................................................................................30
5 Crucial factors in establishing electronic government............................................................................30
5.1 Promoting public confidence and competence in the use of IT............................................................30
5.2 Digital Identity – Electronic Citizenship...............................................................................................31
5.3 Standards.................................................................................................................................................33
5.4 Security...................................................................................................................................................34
5.5 Issues to be Resolved..............................................................................................................................37
6 Concluding Remarks....................................................................................................................................38
7 References....................................................................................................................................................40
1 Introduction
The term ”information society” is the propagated catch-phrase these days. It refers to
the widespread application of information technology within the whole society. The
digital revolution means that a significant part of economic transactions is conducted
through digital electronic means. Access to computers and communication networks
influences the opportunities to participate effectively in a range of economic and
social activities. Communication technologies are for the most part accepted as
public infrastructure. The mainly applied media for providing information and political
communication used to be television, radio and newspapers. But all those media
have some limitations as they communicate to but not with the viewer and they are
mediated through professionals who determine its content. The new communication
technologies have the potential to reverse the one-sided discussion to a real
interaction and discussion from above to below and top-down.

The relationship between government and citizens will experience a major change
as the ability to interact with government agencies will soon be influenced by those
technologies. The realisation of an “Electronic Government” will be the next step. It
seems to be impossible to delay this trend as it is driven to a large extent by private
computer users who are familiar with the use of IT and who expect the government
to adopt these new ways of working. Governments have the opportunity to use
information technology to improve the efficiency of the executive tasks of
government, to facilitate improved relationships between citizens and the state and
to be more transparent.

Our world is changing so fast that democracy is endangered unless citizens are
involved continuously in setting policy direction. Communication in general is
undergoing a revolutionary change, citizens get access to all kinds of information
and modern technology offers the means to improve the participation in politics. The
probably greatest challenge in improving government-citizen electronic interaction
will be to apply information technology in a responsible way in order to enable
citizens to take part in decision-making in public affairs. Some politicians are aware

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of this development and try to get benefit from it. For instance, Ross Perot presented
a concept of an electronic town hall in the 1992 US presidential elections.

The expectations and plans related to information technology may differ from
government to government as well as those of citizens. Nevertheless, it is a fact that
no government in Europe can afford to ignore information technology without having
to fear economic disadvantages. It seems to be justified to announce expectations
that the Internet will serve as a tool to ”reinvent the government” and to ”transform
the society”.

This paper aims to discuss the following issues:

a) The impact of information technology on democracy
b) The employment of information technology within the public administration
c) The changing relation between government and citizens.

The term “IT” encompasses all forms of technology used to create, store, exchange
and use information in its various forms. 1 The term “electronic democracy” refers to
the widespread application of IT within all democratic powers, in particular the law-
making and decision-making process. “Electronic government” refers to the
electronic handling of governmental affairs and the changing methods of working for
public authorities.

The paper is organised in the following way. Chapter two offers an overview of the
legal framework regarding the use of IT in the public sector. Chapter three
elaborates the potentials and threats inherent in electronic democracy and provides
an overview of international projects applying IT in order to increase democratic
participation of citizens. Chapter four illustrates possibilities to encourage efficiency
in the public administration by using IT. Chapter five focuses on crucial factors which
have to be considered when establishing electronic government. Finally, chapter six
closes with concluding remarks. Throughout the chapters and on several occasions
reference will be made to the Austrian and Swedish legislation.

1
http://www.whatis.com

2
2 Legal Framework

2.1 Democracy
The idea of democracy means ”the rule of the people”, originated from the city-states
of ancient Greece. Direct communication among all the political actors was an
attainable ideal. It is difficult to apply the initial model of direct democracy to
contemporary democracies because of the huge number of people involved. It is
replaced by the model of representative democracy which ensures that people are
represented at a political level by politicians which are held accountable through
elections. In modern political systems, democracy is linked to free elections, the rule
of law and human rights. The general opinion holds that representative democracy is
the only form of democracy possible in today’s heterogeneous states.

Powers in
Democracy

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 Legislative authority Executive Authorities

Parliament Government Courts

Fig. Powers in Democracy

For democracy to function properly, the powers fulfil different tasks. The parliament
is the institution which legislates, after initiatives from Members of the Parliament,
the government or, if possibilities for direct participation are provided, by the citizens.
The government and the courts execute the legislation. Between them, a strict
separation of powers has to be observed.

The allocation of the political power in a democratic state is usually regulated in

its constitution. For instance, in the Austrian Constitution (B-VG), the legislative
power is regulated in Article 24: ”The legislative power of the Federation is
exercised by the House of Representatives jointly with the Senate.”

The Voting Procedures are also prescribed in the constitution. Art. 26 B-VG holds,
that ”The House of Representatives is elected by the nation in accordance with the
principles of proportional representation on the basis of equal, direct, secret, and
personal suffrage for men and women who have completed their nineteenth year of
life on a day appointed prior to the election. (…) Detailed provisions about the
electoral procedure and compulsory voting, if necessary, will be made by federal law
(the so-called “Nationalrats-Wahlordnung 1992”). In Sweden, Chapter three Article 1
of the constitution holds, that “The Parliament is appointed by free, secret and direct
elections.”

2.2 International Regulations regarding Information Technology

As the European Union shall foster business activities among the member states,
questions related to data protection or the acceptance of electronic signatures
require uniform standards guaranteed within all member states. The employment of
information technology in the public sector is an issue which has to be solved at an

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international level. Several IC-Directives regulate the use of information technology,
in particular for the protection of individuals, but also to foster a climate that enables
a secure use of IT for government and businesses.

 Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 24

October 1995 on the protection of individuals with regard to the
processing of personal data and on the free movement of such data

 Directive 1999/93/EC of 13 December 1999 on a Community framework for

electronic signatures

 Recommendation No. 99/52 of the Committee of Ministers to Member States

of 23 February 1999 sets guidelines for the protection of individuals with
regard to the collection and processing of personal data on information
highways

 Decision No. 1719/1999/EC and No. 1720/1999/EC of 12 July 1999 regarding

guidelines and measures for the electronic interchange of data between
administrations (IDA)

 G7 Government online and democracy white paper 3

3 Electronic Democracy
Together with the globalisation of the economy, the ideological foundations of
autonomy of a state have changed. As more and more questions have to be solved
at an international level, national sovereignty and concurrently the influence of
citizens decrease. A lot of citizens sense an increasingly large gap between them
and their representatives as public officials rarely consult the public except during
election campaigns. Many people do not vote any longer, because they do not find a
party which suits their values. There are many people who criticise their politicians
for being too far away from the citizens´ problems and demands and for being a
superior class with almost no connection to ordinary people. And they say openly
they despise politicians, because they do not stand up for true values, take personal
responsibility, listen to the citizens´ real needs, solve problems etc. Instead, many
believe politicians want to save their jobs, want power. So the system does not work
well any longer. Electronic democracy may be a way to get the people back in

2
http://www.coe.fr/dataprotection/elignes.htm
3
http://www.open.gov.uk/govoline/front.htm

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power, for instance Article 1 of the Swedish constitution says “All public power
proceeds from the people!”

For democracy to be “the rule of the people”, those elected have to have a good
communication with the citizens. As communication about politics is one of the major
issues in any democracy, new communication technologies are likely to have impact
on the democratic process. “Electronic democracy is an expression of the
information age. Through the technology of the Internet, people have greater access
to government agencies and information. They also have the ability to disseminate
that information rapidly to large numbers of people - thus promoting grass-roots
organizations and activism.” 4 Electronic democracy involves the use of information
and communication technology (ICT) within the democratic powers, in particular as a
means to empower citizens to participate in policy making 5. It comprises the capacity
of a new communications environment which has the power to enhance the quality
of public participation in government. This development will have an important
impact on democracy as it will facilitate the re-vitalisation of society by empowering
citizens to voice their ideas and opinions and to engage them in the process of
decision-making. With the Internet, for instance, it is easier to find people who share
one´s view, start a discussion and set the agendas for further debate.

Different models and ideals of electronic democracy can be identified. 6 The

Electronic Bureaucracy Model refers to the electronic handling of government affairs.
The Information Management Model aims to create an effective communication
between citizens and decision-makers. The Populist Model (as endorsed by Ross
Perot with his campaign of “electronic town halls”) enables citizens to publish their
views on certain issues. The Civil Society Model refers to a transformation of the
political culture by the employment of communication technology. It will influence the
quality of public debate and change the interpersonal relationships. One ideal is
deliberative democracy with representative democracy as a starting point.
Deliberation means a thoughtful consideration of the various outcomes and
alternatives of a specific issue. The model of deliberative democracy aims at
enabling on-line discussion forums between politicians and citizens. A combination
4
http://www.unt.edu/UNT/departments/CC/Benchmarks/benchmarks_html/sum96/edemcrcy.htm
5
http://www.naturespace.co.nz/ed/edov.htm
6
http://home.vicnet.net.au/~victorp/electron.htm

6
of representative and direct democracy is also discussed. In this model, the
citizens set the values and decide what kind of matters demand representational
processes and expertise, and what issues can be solved directly by the citizens.

3.1 Future scenario

Let us put ourselves in a state called ITOPIA. In this state, citizens do not have to
worry about meeting terms and due dates any more. Their duties to pay taxes or
insurance fees are automatically handled by the relevant authorities as well as their
entitlements for several welfare benefits. If questions arise and they need some
advice, they can visit their virtual community. After typing in their question, the
relevant agencies will be contacted and all the pertinent information from various
agencies will be presented to them in a clearly arranged way. Or while sitting in a
car, people can take care of their tax declaration or apply for benefits by calling a
public voice service which guides them through all the necessary steps.

Citizens of Itopia may be very interested in politics. As they are all equipped with an
interactive terminal, they can easily take part in ”cyber-politics” by visiting virtual
forums and discussion groups. Another feature of Itopia is that citizens do not have
to leave the house anymore in order to vote for their politicians or to give their
opinion on certain issues. There are interactive public information channels through
the Television and the Internet which provide information and also allow multiple-
way-communication. When there are consultations about specific plans or initiatives,
citizens only have to press certain buttons on their remote control or dial certain
telephone numbers. They can vote from home, abroad or from a public phone with a
free call number. All important issues are decided by electronic referendums. As all
citizens of Itopia have to provide the responsible authority with their physical token,
for instance their fingerprint or a retina scan, they can easily be identified by the
central computer. Those biometric identifiers facilitate also the authentication so that
the citizens can inform the authorities about changed circumstances (change of
address, etc.) just by transmitting their biometric password.

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The policy of Itopia encourages people to come up with new ideas and suggestions.
In the “Greenhouse of Ideas” people can post their ideas. Everyone can read them
and give them a rating so that a chart of ideas will be created. The ideas on top of
the chart will be put into an discussion forum in order to develop their realisation.
This practice enables ideas to grow and to be realised afterwards.

3.2 TV, Internet + Telephone = Electronic Democracy?

The scenario illustrated above may seem to be far away, but if one thinks of the
experiment in Iceland to collect the genetic information of all citizens for scientific
purposes, the transparent citizen does not seem to be far away any longer. 7
the new technology is likely to affect democratic politics as there are already
attempts to revitalise democracy through electronic means. The mainly applied
communication and information tools are telephone, newspapers, radio, television
and the Internet. They constitute different grades of participation possibilities, for
instance the telephone as a medium of two-way communication can be said to be
more “reliable” compared to the television as a medium of one-way broadcast.
Internet provides many-to-many communication and egalitarian discussion between
the participants. The experiments of electronic town meetings give an outlook of
how the interaction between government and citizens might look like in the future.
The question arises whether the realisation of the scenario of “Itopia” is desirable.
Some applications of IT will be welcomed by citizens as they facilitate the
accomplishment of civic obligations to a certain extent. For instance, the filling in of
application forms for benefits or of tax forms are tasks not very appreciated by many
citizens.

Nevertheless, many objections still remain. It is open to discussion whether putting

an interactive terminal in every home would increase political participation or create

7
www.decode.is

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opportunities for surveillance and intrusion. The demon of ”Big Brother” as described
in George Orwell´s fiction 1984 threatens. He writes that “with the development of
television and the technical device which made it possible to receive and transmit
simultaneously on the same instrument, private life came to an end.” 8 The parallel to
the Internet seems to be terrifying. However, the main difference between Orwell´s
conception of televisions and the Internet is that the new techniques are not in the
hands of governmental authorities but can be used by citizens and provide them with
greater information possibilities. Mark Crispin Miller, a professor of media studies at
New York University, twisted Orwell´s words and suggested that nowadays “Big
Brother is you, watching.” 9

Information Technology can be looked upon as a paradoxical development. The

benefits of IT are twofold as there are simultaneously liberating and controlling
tendencies inherent. On the one hand, the opportunities provided by the application
of IT will increase greatly as they provide ways to energise democratic processes.
Pluralistic sources of information will broaden the understanding of citizens and
simultaneously their feedback will help decision-makers to understand what citizens
think about certain issues. When provided with sufficient background information,
many citizens are more willing to accept limits of certain governmental provision as
long as they understand the reasons for them. Both government and citizens can
take benefit.

The probably most democratizing aspect of IT is the possibility for people to

communicate and organise in groups. With the use of communications technology,
citizens may gather information and knowledge about the basis upon which official
decisions are based and by this way correct errors in the administration. The users
of interactive communications technology will be motivated to revitalise democratic
ideas and hold its representatives accountable as they dispose of more detailed
information. This may lead to a liberalised public interaction among citizens and
support the further development of democracy.

8
George Orwell “Nineteen eighty-four”, Penguin Books edition 1990, page 214
9
http://www.electrablue.com/bluesky/qube/orwellhuxley.html

9
As Internet is free from geographical restrictions, it will remove physical
constraints on information processing and enable communication across national
boundaries. By this way, new opportunities for Third World countries are opened
because electronic access could erase disparities of distance. Internet enthusiasts,
however, often seem to ignore that mass participation in the political process via the
new media is presently an unrealistic aim as there are still a lot of people without
access to the Internet. The geographer Doreen Massey draws the attention to
various instances of the power geometry 10 found in different kinds of flows and that
different social groups are placed in very different ways in relation to those flows:
“Imagine for a moment that you are on a satellite… You can see all the
movement and tune in to all the communication that is going on… There are
faxes, e-mail, filmdistribution networks, financial flows and transactions.
Look in closer, and… somewhere in sub-Saharan Africa, there´s a woman
on foot who still spends hours a day collecting water.”

The application of interactive communication technology will lead to a

transformation of the role of politicians. The traditional concept was the function
of the representative as being selected by citizens and making decisions with the
interests of his constituents in mind. On the other hand, it is simultaneously important
for politicians to exercise their own judgements about the rightness of something
rather than just responding to the pressures of certain groups. With the occurrence
of electronic referendums and opinion polls comes the question, that if individual
voters can pose questions and offer opinions, is there still a need for
representatives? The new role for a politician might be to act merely as a proxy11 for
his constituents. The final model might be that citizens directly vote on a given issue.

Information Technology may also be empowering at the local level as distributed

computer networks may provide greater confidence to devolve decision-making
responsibility. IT removes the need to concentrate administrative operations in huge
units. The local office of the future could be a one-stop shop serving a small area
and dealing with the everyday matters. With a specified software and access to
relevant databases a clerk could be able to call up all the necessary information in
10
http://www.geo.ut.ee/nbc/paper/rei.htm
11
A definition of “Proxy Voting” will be provided in Section 3.5

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order to handle forms and applications. A separation between a Front office and a
Back office might be thinkable. Firstly, citizens will contact the public authority at their
local office (Front office). If necessary, the clerk will contact the responsible person in
another office or will even enable a communication for the citizen via
videoconferencing. In Sweden, citizens´ bureaux12 have been set up as a result of a
new approach to the organisation of public administration at the local level. Their
activities consist of providing information and processing uncomplicated
administrative matters.

But this optimistic view may be counterpoised against the pessimistic assertion that
there is a centralising potential in IT as the importance of control and hierarchy
may be enhanced. The Internet is not universally accessible so far and it remains
questionable whether it can really contribute to democracy. A decision-making elite
may use the technology to further the continuance of centralised structures. The
political elite and some elemental relationships in political communication will be
unaffected by the new methods of communication as those are one-to-one
interactions that remain an important part of the political process. A socially
irresponsible use of the new technologies may remove some of the most important
qualities of democracy like equality and privacy by further reducing the space of
privacy and censorship or by favouring the computer have´s at the expense of the
have-not´s.

An electronic anarchy could be established. One scenario may be when politicians

are confronted with the result of a survey which demands measures that were
declined by the government. The technology can be used to transmit information
against the intentions of governments and by this way undermine hierarchical
institutions. The Internet presents difficult problems of control for authoritarian
countries and closed societies as their restrictions and censorship become
ineffectual with the free flow of information between terminals. When the popular
voice is in contrast to the political system, voices for changing the system may
become audible.

12
http://www.statskontoret.se/gol-democracy/sweden.htm

11
There is also the threat that short term reactions prevail over long term, that the
system becomes too "quick" and that populistic alternatives get more emphasis. It is
a crucial factor that the representation of minority views is ensured in some form
in order not to create mainstream politics. Otherwise there is the danger that
politicians stand up for what is popular rather than for their own beliefs.

3.2.1 Information technology as panacea for direct democracy

”I am suggesting many ways to ensure that the voice of the Parliament is

really the voice of the people and not that of hired voters. With this end in
view I am looking for a device which will enable us to listen to the voice of
the entire people.” Mahatma Gandhi, 24.8.1924

Is direct democracy possible? Steven Clift 13, one of the founders of the “Minnesota
E-Democracy Project” sets a low expectation in improving democracy through the
Internet. “I´d like to suggest that just as the television saved democracy, so will the
Internet.” There are ambivalent opinions perceivable. One argument is that large
groups need several layers of representation rather than direct representation as
otherwise they are unable to find a consensus. The developing of policies needs a
lot of administration which citizens might not want to be engaged in. The complex
and demanding task of enacting legislation takes professional people with the
necessary skills.
Much is written about the opportunities information technology provides in order to
involve citizens in the political process of decision-making. Howard Rheingold argues
that “the Internet can be a channel for all kinds of information that otherwise would
have never made it to the mass media.” 14 One ideal, for instance, is quick
democracy, with the aim that opinion polls should constantly be arranged and all
citizens should be able to make on-line votes. We might be heading for an era of
direct democracy where political decisions are made by a computerised public vote,
a so-called “push-button democracy”. Electronic referendums, electronic town
halls and touch-tone plebiscites threaten to replace the face-to-face political
meetings of the past. The combination of politics and interactive communication
13
Steven Clift Article, ”Democracy is Online”, March/April 1998, http://www.e-democracy.org/do/article.html
14
http://www.rheingold.com

12
technology may lead to an enlightenment of citizens. But executed in a false way, it
may as well lead to the situation of a country run by push-button impulse.

Some of those ideas sound revolutionary and give the impression that information
technology is the “panacea” for reinventing democracy. The traditional means for
citizen participation recede into the background. The following section aims at
providing an overview of the possibilities for traditional direct political participation in
Austria.

3.2.2 Initiative and Referendum

The Austrian constitution (B-VG) provides three ways for direct citizen participation:
 Initiatives:
Art. 41/2 B-VG holds that “every motion proposed by 100 000 voters or by one sixth
each of the voters in three states shall be submitted by the main electoral board to
the House of Representatives for action. The initiative must be put forward in the
form of a draft law.”

 Referenda:
Art. 43 B-VG holds that “if the House of Representatives so decides, every
enactment of the House of Representatives shall be submitted to a referendum (…).”
For a referendum, the absolute majority of the validly cast votes is decisive.

The procedure for an initiative and a referendum are prescribed by federal laws,
regarding the practice of referenda through the so-called “Volksabstimmungsgesetz
1972”, for intiatives the “Volksbegehrengesetz 1973” is applicable.

 Question to the public:

Article 49 b B-VG holds, that for an issue with nation-wide reference, the parliament
or the government can initiate a question to the public, which can only be answered
with „yes“or „no“.

3.3 Electronic Town Halls

The term “electronic town hall” has several meanings. It refers to a means for
interaction between citizens and politicians, as a means to facilitate dialogue
between citizens and also as an interactive polling device. The starting point for
establishing the experiment of electronic town halls was the question of how IT can

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be employed in order to support democratic communication between citizens and
their political representatives. The term “town hall” is chosen as a metaphor to
support the impression of the traditional town hall meetings of seventeenth and
eighteenth century in New England.

Electronic town halls gained prominence during Ross Perot´s appeal in the 1992 US
presidential elections where he attempted to promote himself as “the people´s rather
than the party´s politician.” His concept of an electronic town meeting was
welcomed by many people but also sharply criticized, as being “a formular ripe for
demagoguery” and electronic forums as “couch potatoe democracy”.

Electronic town halls constitute a means of interactive and direct, unmediated

interaction with public officials and an electronic dialogue among citizens as well as
an interactive polling device. In the electronic town hall projects, a single major issue,
together with explanations, will be presented to people. People will discuss about this
topic and give their opinions, maybe with pre-selected options. Online community
conversations have focused discussions and the citizens will be influenced by many
ideas. These electronic meetings may be limited to a village as so-called “community
network”. In fact, in smaller communities the practice could be well functioning
because it is easier to inform all people about relevant issues and to motivate them
to take part more actively, for instance to inform the citizens about public ground
plans. “On-line communities” are interactive community networks, where people
share common interests and exchange ideas and opinions, independently from a
geographic region.

3.3.1 Examples of Electronic Town Hall Projects

Minnesota E-Democracy Project – www.e-democracy.org

This project was founded in 1994 by a group of volunteers and describes itself as a
non-partisan citizen-based project which wants to improve participation in democracy
through the use of information networks. Originally, the project wanted to create an
interactive forum for citizens to access information from and about the candidates for
governor and U.S. senate and to enable dialogue with the candidates and other

14
citizens. With a focus on Minnesota issues, the forum is now part of real politics in
Minnesota.

United Kingdom Citizen Online Democracy – www.democracy.org.uk

This project was established before the national elections in 1997 and is Britain´s
first national online democracy service. It is also a non-partisan project with the aim
to enable interactive consultation between citizens and their political representatives.
The Government has supported the project.

Malaysia.Net – www.malaysia.net

The powerful and complex impacts of the Internet can be seen in the project
“Malaysia.net” which constitutes an open forum in an environment with a culturally
restrained media. The servers of this project are located in Australia.

DALI Project

In January 1996 the project “Dali” was set up in close cooperation of the
municipalities of Barcelona, Bologna, Cologne, Leipzig, Gran Canaria, London,
Turin, Toulouse and Gothenburg. DALI stands for “Delivery and Access to Local
Information and Services” and is supported by the European Union within the scope
of the “I*M Europe Telematics Application Programme”. The DALI project in
Gothenburg15 in Sweden was developed as a local government initiative which
comprised three districts and intended to provide citizens with information about the
political process in the districts and on-line forums to improve the political discussion.
The DALI-system focuses on four main areas that are accessed through the district
home page: The administrative information section contains information about
activities of various municipial services, such as schools and sport facilities, the
current issues section contains political proposals and local news of a general
character, the discussion forum consists of moderated, publicly accessible debates
on political issues in which both citizens and politicians can participate. The archives
contain outdated documents and discussions.

15
http://www.dali.goteborg.se

15
Electronic Village Hall-experiment in Denmark

The experiment of Lars Qvortrup, a professor at Odense University in Denmark who

has specialised in research into community teleservice centres, shows that under
certain circumstances also the finding of consensus is possible. The experiment of
an “Electronic Village Hall”16 was launched by the Danish Technology Council in
1995 and involved more than 500 persons in a three weeks action, showing how
computer networks can be used as a means of consensus building among citizens.
Among others, the experiment found out that some pre-conditions are necessary in
order to create consensus. A user-friendly interface with a standardised and simple
structure, transparency that all contributions can be read by everybody and a
chairman who organises the discussion and structures the debate. Topics were
presented to the participants and they could send their contributions to a list server
where the contributions were structured according to the themes. Subsequently, the
contributions were distributed among the other participants and they could give their
opinions. After a certain time, the chairman wrote a proposal of conclusions which
lead to discussions on the proposal. Finally, a set of conclusions was presented.

3.3.2 Potentials and Threats

Do electronic town halls really constitute direct democracy or are they just another
form of talk-show politics? One could question whether they are just a new method
of measuring public opinions or whether they have the potential to lead to a
government by public opinion.

The electronic town hall projects may enable more meaningful, informed participation
in the decision-making process as well as facilitate communication between
politicians and citizens. Putting certain topics to an open discussion shows politicians
what people want and may lead to a better understanding of positions. With the
interactive communication technology, people who are separated geographically are
able to have a fruitful dialogue. The release from geography will lead to “virtual
communities” who are bound together by shared interests. The creation of an

16
http://www.scn.org/tech/the_network/Projects/CSCW-PDC-ws-98/qvortrup-pp.text

16
interactive participation center as a neutral forum for citizens to communicate on
public issues and to have an electronic dialogue on matters of interest might lead to
a greater interest in politics. Such interactive and politically neutral forums may help
democracy come alive and could contribute to the revival of community identity and
to a greater sense of citizen empowerment.

But there is also the threat inherent that the public communication will remain a mere
listing of opinions like in traditional surveys, without enabling citizens to debate. One
point of criticism is that although electronic town halls are purported to be direct, they
are in fact mediated in some ways by having a group of voters who make the
decision and not the whole electorate, by having the proposition drawn up by
activists and by relying on virtual interaction. The tendency towards direct democracy
may increase participation but could jeopardise the deliberation aspect of
democracy.

Participation in an electronic town hall requires informed participants and digitally

competent voters. However, most policy issues can hardly be presented in only one
or two hours. There are voices fearing that citizens will not participate as they do not
have the particular knowledge necessary to understand complex matters and many
do not want to be engaged in public affairs. In order to make informed decisions
citizens have to be provided with sufficient information. However, this might lead to a
lower participation rate as many people do not want to invest a lot of time in learning
about the issues. There are two conflicting interests feasible. On the one hand, a
high participation rate is an important factor in order to be representative. On the
other hand, with a high expenditure of time necessary, only a meritocracy of
informed people will take part.

Another criteria to evaluate the performance of electronic town halls is the

opportunity to have deliberation. A meaningful deliberation is important to debate
alternatives and finally select the best solution. In the representative system
deliberation is fostered by the process of checks and balances and the discussions
in advisory committees. In many models of electronic town halls, citizens are
presented with options and they can give their opinions. However, this practice does

17
not facilitate significant debates. The tendency towards direct democracy may
increase participation but could jeopardise the deliberation aspect of democracy.

Finally, one has to consider how well the citizenry is represented in electronic town
halls. It is a crucial factor that the presentation of minority views is safeguarded. The
question occurs if electronic town halls can be representative as the audience is self-
selected and may be dominated by some ambitious people, by a self-selected
opinionated group. When certain questions are placed to the popular vote, the
question arises who chooses the topics and how? If one thinks of traditional
initiatives and referendums, the optimistic picture may be blurred as more often than
not the issues that are discussed and voted on are chosen by an ideological group or
one with an economic interest. Since people often do not have fixed viewpoints, their
answers on issues depend on the questions. Instant polling may constitute an area
of enormous danger as there is no time for thoughtful consideration of the issue. The
susceptibility to manipulation may rise. If not properly applied, an “electronic town
manipulation” may occur. On the other hand, with virtual meetings there might be
less pressure to follow a group opinion than in face-to-face meetings. A benefit of the
Internet is its lack of hierarchy, race and class distinction and many people feel able
to communicate more freely via the net. People can remain anonymous or use
pseudonyms which comprises both advantages and disadvantages. The tone in
electronic meetings might be deliberative and inspiring but also inflammatory.

Another critical factor is the finding of consensus within such virtual communities.
It is an important precondition in order to be representative and to be taken seriously
by politicians. Some critics say that the practice of electronic town halls might be well
functioning for plain information reasons, but is not possible to generate consensus
on a specific action to be taken via the Internet. One way could be to form a
randomly selected group of citizens who will discuss an issue and vote on for
instance a proposed legislation.

To sum up, the introduction of electronic town halls may be a very useful method to
engage citizens in politics. As a circle of many participants demands complex

18
preparations, a success will be dependent on a good presentation of the issues and
easily accessible techniques.

3.4 Electronic Voting

The term “electronic voting” refers to the techniques of voting by telephone as well
as by the Internet. Polling institutions already hold unofficial votes for different
elections and some organisations conduct their surveys electronically.

The Internet provides the infrastructure to support plans for alternative voting
procedures. Citizens will receive ballots and will be able to vote by using the Internet
and leaving their digital signature. Or they may apply Touch-Tone telephones using
a Personal Identification Number (PIN) or leaving their voice signature.

What is really gained by changing the traditional election environment? Ithiel de Sola
Pool, who was a leading pioneer in the analysis of communications and political
behaviour, said that “it is hard to see what is gained by voting from the home, other
than keeping the citizen dry if it rains.” 17

The two main objections are that the electronic voting system could be corrupted and
that it eliminates the community building process that usually exists in the polling
places whereas an electronic voter does not have to leave the house for giving his or
her vote. Another crucial question in connection with electronic voting is, who is
deciding which issues are going to be voted upon? Who determines and by what
criteria who is allowed to vote? As a lot of people still do not have access to the
Internet, electronic voting may only be attractive for a limited population group as the
typical Internet user is an under 35 male university graduate.

Proponents argue that telephone or Internet voting could remedy low voter turnout
as citizens with disabilities or those too busy to vote could be more easily engaged
into the voting process. The main reason why people are interested in electronic

Ithiel De Sola Pool, Lecture “The UnCivic Culture: Communication, Identity, and the Rise of Lifestyle
17

Politics” - http://www.apsanet.org/PS/dec98/bennett.cfm

19
polls is the possibility to cast their votes from wherever they want, for instance from
home, from the office or from a cell phone. This mobility factor might increase voter
participation. But at the same time it causes major problems when designing a
secure voting system as there are no physical limits any more. Electronic elections
also have the potential of being cheaper and easier to administer than the traditional
ones, thus making electronic voting more convenient.

3.4.1 Examples of Electronic Voting Systems

Vivarto Voting Systems – www.vivarto.com

Vivarto describes itself as a new idea on how to combine efficiency, democracy and
expertise in governing large organizations with the help of modern information and
communication technology (ICT).

Project Vote Smart - www.vote-smart.org

Vote Smart is a non-partisan organisation devoted to creating better-informed
electorate prior to selecting US governmental officials. It provides comprehensive
information about the parliamentary process.

In Canada there is a proposed new Federal Party called “The Canadian People´s
Direct Democracy Party”. In their “Direct Democracy´s National Referendum” 18 they
propose some interesting ways of how citizens can be involved in decision-making.
For instance, new governmental bills will be shown on television and citizens have
the opportunity to dial in and vote on the bill by using their pin numbers.

The Voting by Phone Foundation - www.vote.org/v/index.htm aims to promote

the use of the telephone as a means of voting directly on issues from the home.

The Voting Integrity Project - www.voting-integrity.org is committed to

monitoring and assisting the debate on Internet voting systems.

18
http://www.cdn-direct-democracy.com/national_referendum.htm

20
The Direct Democracy Initiative 19 wants people to exercise their legislative power
directly in government. In the Preamble of their draft of a proposed federal law dated
March 31, 2000, they write: “…we delegated elements of our political power to
elected representatives… In this age of technology, to limit the use of our political
power only to its delegation is unnecessary and unwarranted.” According to their
draft, an initiative may qualify for election if at least fifty percent of the respondents
(who shall be qualified as registered voters) in an acceptable public opinion poll
express their willingness that the initiative be voted upon. A committee of randomly
selected ordinary citizens from the relevant jurisdiction shall review the transcript of
hearings and prepare a written report of its deliberations. Subsequently, the report
shall be transmitted to the legislative body which shall conduct a public roll-call vote
on the initiative. Concerning public information, the draft suggests that “The Electoral
Trust” which will be established to administer the Direct Democracy Initiative, shall
prepare an information pamphlet for each qualified initiative with a balanced pro and
con analysis of the subject, its implications, as well as its expected economic impact,
and statements by proponents and opponents.

3.4.2 System Performance

If the Internet or the telephone is to be used for serious elections, confidence in the
election results has to be achieved. Electronic voting systems could be compromised
and results corrupted by allowing ineligible voters to register or cast more than one
vote. Or the identity of voters and their selected choice could be revealed. Internet
voting sites could be vulnerable of being attacked by hackers as defeating alleged
secure systems might represent an appealing target for them. This occurrence could
result in election disruption or fraud. Other problems are service breakouts, for
instance when the system fails to handle large volumes of traffic. These breakdowns
could be caused by power failures but also by hackers who bombard the system with
massive traffic.

An electronic voting system must fulfil certain criteria for evaluating system
performance. Among the desirable characteristics are:

19
http://www.vote.org/v/ddi.htm

21
 Accuracy: It should not be possible for the system to alter a vote.
 Democracy: The system has to ensure that only eligible voters have the
possibility to vote. The registrar must assure that each
registered voter is legally competent to vote.
 Privacy: The system should not enable to link ballots to the voter.
 Security: The transmission of votes to the election center must be secure.

Safeguards must be adopted to promote reliability. In order to ensure authentication,

identification and secrecy, electronic voting systems may use several techniques 20
like:

 Personal Identity Numbers (PIN) or passwords is the most basic level of

security and ensure that a voter´s ballot is only be used by that particular voter.

 Smart cards: After being issued to voters, smart cards could be used at any
computer equipped with a “reader”. Combined with a PIN or a password, the
smart cards could be programmed with ballots. The “reader” would act as the
voting device and the Internet would be used to transmit the ballot.

 Cryptographic techniques:
One can distinguish between symmetric and asymmetric methods. Symmetric
cryptography uses only one key, one example is the DES-algorithm which is often
used for the communication between clients and banks. With the asymmetric
method, a pair of keys is generated, a private and a public key. These technology
is used for instance to create digital signatures. Digital signatures can be used
to authenticate documents and to verify that a document was signed by a
registered voter. Another alternative may be so-called “Blind signature protocols”.
These are digital signatures which allow a document to be signed without
revealing its content. Since the invention of blind signatures in 1982 by David
Chaum, there have been many proposals to realize anonymous voting systems
using this mechanism. Although these systems offer high privacy to the users,
they have the disadvantage that the anonymity might be misused by criminals in
20
Those techniques will also be elaborated in section 5.4

22
 order to commit a perfect crime (without being physically present, and thus with
the assurance of not being caught).

 Biometric identifiers: Fingerprints, voice recognition or retina scan are biometric

techniques that could be used to ensure that only registered voters cast ballots.

Another crucial factor for ensuring security is to define standards for the election
equipment and to maintain an uniform voting policy so that citizens will find the
same voting procedures within the relevant area. On the other hand, a uniform
voting system would be more likely exposed to hacker attacks as it constitutes a
non-moving target.

Summing up, it might be said that electronic voting systems should be suitable for
performing all kinds of elections, including governmental elections, as long as they
get the public confidence by guaranteeing a certain level of security and privacy.
Initially, these systems will have to be used in “private” elections like unions and
corporations in order to test their success. The application of information technology
in official elections will mainly be a political choice as politicians will be more
interested to know how IT will influence the outcomes of the votings than whether
citizens want to use those practices. A realistic assumption might be to regard the
technology as a supplement to the existing system, but not as a replacement as
people are needed to draw up the legislation and to administer.

3.5 Proxy Voting

23
One alternative election policy might be the practice of proxy voting. A proxy is a
personally selected representative who votes instead of a citizen who entitled him to
vote. With the application of IT, proxy voting can be applied on a much larger scale
because communication and presentation has become easier. The representative
presents himself and his views on a website. Any individual or organisation may
register as a proxy voter. It is possible to have different representatives for different
issues. The advantage of a proxy is that he does not have to follow the power
structures of a certain political party. Citizens are given a better choice of
representatives and more alternatives.

The question, however, arises whether this idealistic aim can be achieved. Whereas
a representative has to consider what is best for his district, a proxy is constrained to
represent the majority viewpoint. A tyranny of the majority could occur and the
public opinion could be more easily manipulated. The task of preparing legislation is
very demanding and time-consuming. This means that the proxy voters will have to
be people who dedicate their energy and time to meet these requirements. In order
to earn their living, they will have to attract as many voters as possible. By this way,
there is no big difference to ordinary politicians ascertainable.

4 Electronic Government

The Model of Electronic Bureaucracy and the concept of an Electronic Government

refer to the electronic handling of governmental affairs and aim to provide
governmental services through electronic means. Within the administration,
information technology is applied for electronic document production and
management. Intranets are used for research purposes and to help officials to
perform their duties. Public agencies already make use of e-mail and the Internet by
providing information on-line. But to date those applications are confined to one-way
dissemination of information like downloadable tax forms or agency brochures. In the
future, particular attention will be paid to applications which encourage the
communication within the administration, but also between public authorities and
citizens.

24
Persons in the government responsible for the application of information technology
will have to be convincing in order to overcome obstacles and delaying tactics within
public agencies. The Internet and in particular e-mail may destroy traditional
hierarchical structures by skipping one or more levels in the hierarchy. The free flow
of information will be favoured, at the expense of political “middlemen”. But if the
hierarchical structures remain untouched and are only bypassed, the use of
communication and information technologies will not have a substantial effect. The
probably greatest threat from information technology for administration managers is
the incompatibility with its organisational structure. Access to public services is often
uncoordinated and not customer-friendly. If more than one agency is involved, a
customer must go through several rounds of inquiries, with frequent routings from
one government employee to another.

4.1 Applications of Information Technology in the Public Sector

The employment of communication and information technology might bring

improvements for both citizens and the administration itself. One can distinguish
between internal and external governmental applications of IT. In the last decade,
information technology has been mainly used within the public agencies in order to
automate processes. Otherwise it would be impossible for instance to cope with all
the applications forms without the assistance of computers. The internal applications
comprise for instance data compilations and workflow-systems. The external
applications refer to the interaction between citizens or businesses and public
authorities.

There are three useful forms of applying IT in the public sector:

Information: Access to data compilations, documents and governmental information
like laws, meeting agendas and diverse reports are already made available on the
Internet.
Communication: Today, most of the public authorities have both websites and e-
mail addresses. The possibility of discussion groups and discussions is still not very
common within the public sector. E-mail makes it easier to contact the government

25
whereas most citizens would have chosen not to contact the government through
traditional means.
Transaction: That service includes downloading of forms, and as a more
sophisticated application the filing in of for instance tax forms on the Internet.

According to Klaus Lenk21 three areas are showing the greatest potential of IT within
public agencies:
1. Citizens services: Information systems, on-line transactions
2. Feedback of citizens: concerning the actions of public authorities
3. Participation: in democratic decision-making.

One pre-condition applying IT in the public sector is to analyse the different phases
in a citizen-administration interaction. A typical interaction may include following
steps:
1. Preparation of the contact with a public agency by the citizen
2. Application for benefits, filling in of forms
3. Processing of the application by the public authority
4. Notification of the binding decision
5. Proceedings afterwards, like legal remedies and appeals

Subsequently, the application of helpful techniques during those phases may be

considered. Technologies like e-mail, CTI (Computer Telephony Integration) , expert
systems and smart cards are fundamentally transforming the economy and have
also the potential to transform the ways in which governments work. New services
will be offered, for instance:

On-line forms – Many public agencies already allow citizens to download forms on-
line and then mail the paper copies. Consequently, the submitting of forms on-line
will be the next step. For instance electronic tax declarations could provide the
possibility for businesses only having to fill in one form in order to fulfil all their local
and federal obligations Those on-line forms could use shared information from
different agencies about the submitter. 22 For nordic countries, the website
21
http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/fb3/lehre/lenk
22
The precondition for this practice will be a digital identity of citizens, see section 5.2

26
www.signform.se supplies templates for legal forms and office forms which can be
downloaded by people through a paid subscription.

One-stop government shops – Government services allowing access to all

transactions at one location. The necessary contacts for a transaction shall be
reduced to a minimum, preferably to just one contact for one transaction. With the
help of interactive, customer-activated terminals called kiosks, which are modelled
after automated teller machines (ATMs), citizens shall have enough possibilities for
access to those services.

24 x 7 x 365 access – Government can enable the development of public agencies

which are able to supply information and electronic self-service systems around the
clock.

On-line information pools – Information services, access to public sector

information, virtual forums for job exchanges, databases for all kinds of information.
The Austrian government maintains an information service on the website
www.help.gv.at which provides information about all kinds of issues citizens might be
involved in.

Electronic payment methods – In Austria, the government has established the

service www.bezahlen.at, in co-operation with the bank P.S.K. which serves as a
trusted third party. Citizens have the possibility to pay taxes and charges via this
service, but may also settle bills with some companies which are members of this
service. In Sweden, the revised Accounting Act allows electronic documentation to
be accepted for all transactions in an accountancy chain.

Expert systems – A customized expert system could be applied, which guides the
users through complex matters, for instance in order to find out what legal
requirements they have to face.

Personalised communication – Political parties already make use of electronic

mailing lists by sending customised mails to targeted voters and a number of public

27
agencies have developed e-mail as a supplement to the traditional postal or
telephone channels, because e-mail can be cheaper and also more and more
citizens insist on e-mail communication with government agencies. However,
questions from citizens have to be treated in an equal manner, no matter if they are
sent in electronic or paper form. The Swedish Ministry of Industry, Employment and
Communication for instance has adopted the approach not to single out e-mail
questions for extra quick processing as compared to questions written on paper.
However, as e-mail questions tend to contain shorter and more technical issues than
those on paper, they can to a greater extent be answered by a desk officer. The e-
mail communication can be form based (pre-structured response fields, for instance
a menu of choices or accepting only a limited range of answers) or in free form (not
formally pre-structured and allowing all kinds of inquiries from citizens). The
distinction is significant in so far as it indicates the extent to which such messages
are useful to automated processing or to handling by intelligent agents.

Extranet – as a system to securely share part of government information with

authorised users.

4.2 International Initiatives fostering the government use of

Information Technology

4.2.1 IDA
IDA23 is the European Union Programme for the Interchange of Data between
Administrations. The project IDA aims at enabling seamless, fast and cost-effective
exchange of data between local, state and federal authorities and the EC while
maintaining national autonomy in network implementations. For instance, together
with the free movement of workers, social security rights have to be transferred from
one EU country to any other which brings along the exchange of paper records. IDA
wants to create a common approach by setting up architecture guidelines and a set
of tools. Within IDA, several projects are executed to solve those problems, for
instance “E-mail for administrations and groups”, which intends to eliminate time-

23
http://www.ispo.cec.be/ida/text/english/aware1.htm

28
consuming administrative work such as sending out huge amounts of copies by post
or courier.

4.2.2 TESTA
TESTA24 is part of the IDA programme and stands for “Trans-European Services for
Telematics between Administrations”. Its objective is to set up a telecommunication
services platform. The technical concept for the future is the creation of a “network of
networks”, enabling any subsidiary networks to link through national entry points to a
EuroDomain.

4.2.3 G 8 Government On-Line Project

A G 7 Ministerial Conference on the Information Society identified several project
themes which should stimulate the deployment of the information society. As a
consequence, Government on-line was launched in 1995. It involves the
governments of over 20 countries and its major themes are
 the replacement of paper-based mail by electronic mail
 the provision of fully interactive, on-line services for more complex transactions,
allowing the public both to obtain and provide information from a variety of
locations
 The development of on-line transaction processing for the support and delivery of
routine services
 Making appropriate government information widely available
 Facilitating information exchange between governments.

The G8GOL project 24 x 7 government online services has the goal to analyse
public sector policies, practices and experiences regarding IT enabled round-the-
clock (self) services to the citizens. 25

4.2.4 International GovNews Project

In 1997, the gov.* hierarchy and a set of newsgroups was created. That project
wants to organise a new part of the Internet News system to cover government and

24
http://158.169.51.200/ida/text/english/newsl5e1.htm
25
http://www.statskontoret.se/service/

29
public policy. The newsgroups are organised by a logical subject hierarchy and by
regional divisions. They want to encourage public discussions by two way
communications and conferencing.

5 Crucial factors in establishing electronic

government

5.1 Promoting public confidence and competence in the use of IT

The most important prerequisite to create an ”Information Society for All” is to enable
accessibility to information technology, to promote confidence in communication and
information technology and to enhance IT-competence by providing citizens with
basic skills. The public administration can set a good example by ensuring that
electronic communication between public agencies and individuals may be
conducted safely, for instance by using electronic signatures. The Directive
1999/93/EC on a Community framework for electronic signatures explicitly states in
Art. 19 that “electronic signatures will be used in the public sector within national and
Community administration and in communications between such administrations and
with citizens and economic operators, for example in the public procurement,
taxation, social security, health and justice systems.”

The Swedish IT-Bill 1999/2000:86 seeks to promote confidence in IT by adapting

regulations that are:
- safe, secure, predictable and technology-neutral
- international, and
- protective of individual privacy.

The governments´ efforts are aimed at inspiring confidence by taking measures that
will lead to a more secure and stable Internet and by stimulating the use of electronic
signatures, such as promoting co-operation between important market actors to
further a common infrastructure for solutions based on smart cards. Governments
will have to provide many of the facilities for free in order to ensure the process to be

30
democratic. They will have to guarantee universal availability of the technical
infrastructure and provide training.

Another issue may be to apply a new system of social ethics on how people behave
when human contact is mediated by communication technology. Many people do not
seem to have a very developed sense of appropriate behaviour in the electronic
world.

5.2 Digital Identity – Electronic Citizenship

Emerging communications technologies have radically altered the ways in which
people communicate, in their private life as well as with public authorities. In order to
ensure troubleless electronic communication between citizens and public authorities,
there is a need to uniquely identify individuals. Citizens will have to adopt a digital
identity. A digital identity will include an individual e-mail account as well as a pair
of public and private keys. One model could consist of creating a unique e-mail
address by the government for every citizen respectively every resident. This
address would be permanent. If the user changes his or her Internet Service
Provider, the messages could be forwarded to this new e-mail account. Directories of
those addresses could be made available to the public on-line, similar to the
traditional telephone directories. The full competition Directive of 13 march 1996
required Member states to end monopolies over the supply of directory services,
including the publication of telephone directories. Therefore, directories for e-mail
addresses may also be published by private companies. Those directories may lead
to the sending of unsolicited mails (“spamming”), so regulations to protect individuals
have to be set into force.

As the transmission of official e-mails as well as the creation of a public key

infrastructure for encryption and digital signatures will have to be trustworthy and
secure, one could think of a governmental Internet Service Provider and a
governmental certification authority, similar to the traditional system of governmental
post offices. But that would be contradictory to the liberalisation process of the
telecom market. The European Commission has sought to prevent the

31
implementation of anti-competitive agreements and the abuse of dominant market
positions by the operators and service providers. 26 The 1999 review of existing
telecommunications legislation provides regulatory principles applicable to
communications infrastructure and associated services, the main objective is to
create a pro-competitive market in communications services. 27

According to the Directive on Digital Signatures, the Member states are only allowed
to set standards for a public key infrastructure which have to be met by certification
agencies.

Another possibility is national identifiers in the form of official citizen cards, for
instance smart cards which contain information about the citizen and his digital
signatures. A tension with some principles of the Data Protection Directive might
occur. According to Art. 8 para. 2 lit. a the processing of sensitive data is only
allowed where the data subject has given his explicit consent, except where laws
provide the possibility of processing data in order to meet public interests. Art. 8
para. 7 allows Member States to use national identification numbers or any other
identifier of general purpose for the processing of personal data. If national
legislation legitimises the processing of national identity cards, then the Data
protection authorities are not able to object to the processing itself, but may only
question the level of security or the quality of the data.

Finnish National Identity Card

The Finnish Population Register Centre (“Befolkningsregistercentralen”) has signed
an agreement to implement electronic identification certificates 28.

26
Directive of the Commission of 28 February 1996 regarding the implementation of full competition in
telecommunications market
27
DGXIII Discussion Document of the European Commission of 21 May 1999
28
http://www.vaestorekisterikeskus.fi/hstsv.htm

32
Fig. 2 Sample of Finnish ID-Card

With this wearable ID, users can reliably identify themselves for various electronic
services or in any other service situation requiring traditional ID cards or passports.
The Finnish Government aims at providing means for a secure use of the modern
information systems. It enables citizens to use public services whenever they want.
The “Befolkningsregistercentralen” is responsible for the administration and
distribution of those ID-cards. The visible information on the card is name, date of
birth, nationality, issue date, validity, signature and photo. The invisible information
consists of the private key, the certificate authority and the range of applications.
However, the use of this card is not compulsory, citizens can choose if they want to
apply it for their transactions.

5.3 Standards
A co-ordinated implementation of IT within public offices in order to achieve an
adjusted appearance is a very important element. It happens that each agency has
an individual information technology plan and acts “agency-centric”, without regard to
the need to develop cross-agency applications and compatibility of systems. It would
be much more convenient if all the information from various agencies were available
in one form and automatically routed to the correct agencies. The application of
standardized markup languages is a useful method of enabling for instance cross
agency referencing and using hyperlinks between different documents.

A single point of entry containing direct links, indexing and search facilities can
simplify the provision of government information. Citizens should not get confused by
completely different interfaces and terms for similar services. It should be logically
organised where to click on the relevant website in order to get to the requested
information.

33
An intensified cooperation between countries requires improved government
performance. The OECD has published a reference checklist for regulatory decision-
making, in order to reach better decisions and predictable decision processes. 29

The website http://europa.eu.int/abc/governments/index_en.html provides an

overview of governmental websites of EU memberstates. Among them, the websites
of Sweden – www.sb.gov.se and UK – www.open.gov.uk offer single entry points.
Other websites with single entry points are, for instance, Australia – www.fed.gov.au
and Norway – www.odin.dep.no

5.4 Security
With the speed of the digital revolution come new challenges to the security of
communications. The security mechanisms of traditional paper-based
communications media are being replaced by cryptographic security techniques.
Much of the communication between governments and citizens will involve sensitive
information, for instance data concerning tax forms, health care records and welfare
benefits transactions. As databases which include sensitive information become
more and more accessible on-line, the consequences of a security failure may be
fatal. Skilled and criminally inclined hackers could download delicate data or they
could carry out illegal transactions. As a consequence, much effort has to be put into
installing protection measures. One precondition for creating a useful electronic
interaction between government and citizens is an infrastructure for verifying the
identity of e-mail correspondents. Therefor, a system for secure and binding e-
mail communication between government agencies and citizens has to be
established. Security may be achieved through implementation of a set of controls,
policies and software functions like firewalls and passwords changing regularly. Any
secured workflow has to start with access controls in order to verify authentication
and identification.

Public agencies should provide the same level of security, as data might be
transferred from one agency to another without citizens having to fear a lack of
security. A definition of standards between public agencies has to be made, for
29
http://www.oecd.org/puma/regref/pubs/rco95/chcklist.htm

34
instance by using the British Standard BS 7799 or the Swedish Standard SS 6277
99. Those are standards for information security management and are intended for
use as a reference document by those who are responsible for developing and
maintaining information security within their organisation. Most digital certificates
conform to the international standard ITU X.509 which keeps ensure interoperability
of digital certificates.

A secure system requires mainly four elements:

 Authentication
 Confidentiality
 Non-repudiation
 Data Integrity

Authentication could be achieved for example through a query-response process,

asking details of the user´s life that only this person should know. But many facts are
accessible in databases and increasingly known to others. A useful solution could
consist of the employment of a Public/Private Key Infrastructure (PKI) and electronic
signatures. A PKI relies on “certificate authorities” that issue digital certificates
representing the identity of the user.

Confidentiality means that information is only accessible to authorized persons.

Non-repudiation means that it shall not be possible to deny the sending of

documents afterwards.

Data Integrity could be achieved by embedding a mathematical function in the

message which represents the content of this message. On receipt of the message,
the same function is calculated to check if it matches the original function. Files can
not be altered during the transmission.

Electronic Signatures present the solution to achieve the above mentioned

requirements. Electronic signatures are created by asymmetric cryptographic
techniques. Two complementary keys are generated and assigned to a user. The
signature key is kept private whereas the other key serves as a signature verification

35
and is published, Trusted third parties – certification authorities – are responsible for
the key creation and management. The Directive 1999/93/EC on a Community
framework for electronic signatures provides a definition: “Electronic signatures
means data in electronic form which are attached to or logically associated with other
electronic data and which serve as a method of authentication.” The Directive aims
at facilitating the use of electronic signatures as well as contributing to their legal
recognition. One of the key provisions is the principle of non-discrimination between
electronic and handwritten signatures. An electronic signature should be considered
equivalent to a handwritten one, including its use as evidence in legal proceedings, if
it meets the conditions covered in Annex I, II, III and IV of the Directive, regarding
requirements for qualified certificates, for certification service-providers, for secure
signature-creation devices and secure signature verification.

Weakness of Public/Private Keys Infrastructure:

These keys are complex digits and will not be memorized by users. Consequently,
they are usually stored in files on a user´s PC and are protected by a simple
password. So all the elaborate encryption could be unlocked with a simple password.
An intelligent way of solving this problem could be to embed the digital certificates in
a physical element, for instance a “smart card”. This is a credit-card like element
which contains a computer chip and memory. A card reader attached to a PC
transmits the relevant digital certificates. A password or PIN is used to lock the smart
card so that a thief could not have access to a stolen card.

5.5 Issues to be Resolved

Apart from the necessity of a secure e-mail communication between public agencies
and citizens, a number of difficult issues will have to be dealt with. For instance:

The legal status of electronic transactions - Many of the laws which now apply to
other forms of communication will have to be extended to electronic
communications. For instance the question when the act of reading an official e-mail
can be construed as evidence that the message was received or what responsibility
citizens have to check their e-mail regularly for official documents.

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Responsibilities concerning operating mistakes, when using government on-line
services in a wrong way.

Responsibility of certificate authorities – What sanctions shall be applied in case

of a security breach or when the CA assigns keys to an impostor?

Relations among certificate authorities – In order to establish a “Web of Trust”,

standards for identities and interoperability among CA´s will have to be developed.

Key escrow and lawful access to encryption keys – As cryptographic techniques

hinder prosecution offices to trace the electronic correspondence of suspicious
persons, some countries propose the licensing of encryption providers. The United
States for instance promoted a concept whereby users would be able to use strong
encryption, however a third party would have to hold the keys and provide them to a
government agency when requested. That concept would require them to hold
copies of users' encryption keys for law-enforcement access to electronic
communications. This suggestion has caused passionate discussions of opposing
parties in some countries. Another approach being considered is to demand “lawful
access” to encryption keys. Individuals would be required to disclose keys to law
enforcement agencies or assist in a law enforcement investigation. An alternative to
key escrow and lawful access to encryption keys could involve the extension of
existing powers to intercept communications.

Government regulation of encryption techniques may be contrary to norms that

recognize privacy, the freedom to communicate in confidence and the privilege
against self incrimination. In March 1997, the OECD issued its Guidelines on
Cryptography Policy which set out basic principles to generate confidence in the use
of communications systems.

6 Concluding Remarks
There is a great potential for significant improvement of citizen-government relations
provided by the new technologies, but the ability to benefit from technical advance
will depend on the speed with which public agencies adapt to it. One of the main

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factors will be the acquisition of the relevant skills by the members of public
agencies.

All the applications of communication and information technology mentioned above

seem to be promising. Nevertheless, they still have not been realised entirely. Why?
The main reasons are insufficient security, costs for installing and maintaining such
services, but also socially constructed barriers such as technophobia, distrust and
lack of beneficiary acceptance. As one member of an IT-security company, in his
speech at the IT-fair in Sollentuna, puts it: “We were used to have heaven and hell.
Now we have a third level to deal with – cyberspace!”

Just as companies that do not embrace the new technologies will become
incompetitive, any nation that delays will face competitive decline and the
appearance of massive structural unemployment.

I think that routine e-mail communication between government agencies and citizens
will still take a while. First of all, standards for confidentiality, integrity, non-
repudiation and authentication have to be established. Laws and regulations will
have to change to assure the official status of these communications. Concepts such
as “signatures” and “original documents” will have to be adapted to the new
techniques in order to make a real progress towards the use of digital technologies
for full official transactions with citizens. If the Internet is to be used to improve
democracy, everyone has to have access to it. A trend in the future will be
community offices, as “one-stop-shops”, where clerks will deal with everyday-matters
of citizens.

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7 References
B. Axford, G.K. Browning, R. Huggins, B. Rosamond, J. Turner, A. Grant, Politics –
An Introduction, 1997, Routledge

Benno, Joachim, The “anonymisation” of the transaction and its impact on legal
problems, Swedish IT Law Observatory Report 6/98

Burnham, David, The Rise of the Computer State, 1983, Weidenfeld and Nicolson

Jones, Peter, Combating Fraud and Corruption in the Public Sector, 1993, Chapman
& Hall

Pitt, Douglas, The Computer Revolution in Administration, 1984, Harvester Press

Publishing Group

Ithiel De Sola Pool, Lecture “The UnCivic Culture: Communication, Identity, and the
Rise of Lifestyle Politics” - http://www.apsanet.org/PS/dec98/bennett.cfm

Susskind, Richard, The Future of Law, 1998, Oxford University Press

Electronic Democracy Links:

A Blueprint for Real Democracy – http://www.chesco.com/~buffam/Manifesto.html

Ranerup, Agneta, Can Internet Improve Democracy in Local Government?,

http://www.informatik.gu.se/~agneta/PDC-textjusterad.A4.html

Australian Electronic Democracy Project -

http://home.vicnet.net.au/~victorp/electron.htm

Minnesota E-Democracy Project - http://www.e-democracy.org

http://www.gotzespace.dk

http://www.auburn.edu/tann/homepage.htm

http://www.uni-oldenburg.de/fb3/lehre/lenk

http://www.help.gv.at

http://www.statskontoret.se

IDA - http://www.ispo.cec.be/ida/idahome.htm

G8 Government Online Project - http://www.open.gov.uk/govonline/front.htm

Vivarto Voting Systems – http://www.vivarto.com

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Electronic Voting Hot List – www.ccrc.wustl.edu/~lorracks/sensus/hotlist.html

Cryptography and Liberty 2000 – An International Survey of Encryption Policy –

http://www2.epic.org/reports/crypto2000/overview.html

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