E-Government: Switzerland in EU comparison
The European Commission today published the 13th eGovernment Status Report. Switzerland performs better than in previous years in the main indicators measured. In the areas of online transparency and basic modules, it lags behind the average of the countries surveyed.
Since 2001, the European Union (EU) has had the development of e-government services studied. The report published today E-Government Benchmark Report 2016 includes the 28 EU countries plus Iceland, Norway, Montenegro, Serbia, Switzerland and Turkey.
Progress in the four main indicators
With this series of studies, the EU is evaluating the implementation status of its Digital Agenda 2020. For this purpose, various life events from the everyday lives of the population and the economy are examined in each case in order to measure the extent to which the four main indicators "user orientation," "transparency," "cross-border mobility," and "basic modules" have been achieved. Switzerland shows a positive development compared to previous years. Like the recently published eGovernment Monitor study, this report gives Switzerland high marks for user orientation. The local administrations have also expanded their range of cross-border processes that can be completed on the Internet. The most significant progress in a two-year comparison can be seen in the life events "company formation" and "regular business processes".
Need to catch up in the area of transparency
In a European comparison, Switzerland shows a need to catch up in the main indicator "transparency" in the traceability of online processes and in the transparency of the use of personal data by the administration. In the main indicator "basic modules," Switzerland has seen an improvement compared with previous years: electronic identities, secure document storage and one-time logins are increasingly available in the life events examined. Compared with other countries, however, Switzerland still lags behind the European average in terms of the extent to which the basic modules have been expanded. The expansion of the basic modules is therefore also a focus of the E-Government-Strategy Switzerland by the federal government, cantons and municipalities. The joint priority plan includes important infrastructure projects, including in particular the establishment of a nationally and internationally recognized electronic identity and the development of an identity network for a uniform registration procedure.
Source: Federal Information Technology Steering Committee
