The Impact of Financial and Economic Crisis on eGov in OECD countries

The global financial and economic crisis has over night, put governments under considerable pressure to promptly address a broad range of challenging political, economic and governance issues affecting both the public and the private sector. In their effort to be agile and responsive to the situation, governments have stretched their human and budgetary resources to the limit. To swiftly create the capacity to handle these new challenges, they are looking at how efficiency and effectiveness in the public sector can be improved.

While some governments have chosen to cut e-government spending and reduce the pace of its implementation, others have chosen to seize this occasion to accelerate the pace of e-government implementation. For every country, the main issues are to avoid wasting tax payers' money, ensure that resources are used most efficiently and effectively, and rebuild citizens’ trust through increased transparency in how decisions are made and implemented. As a consequence, governments are also faced with the challenge of paving new ways to increase citizen participation and engagement.

Seen in this perspective, the different government approaches to the crisis response show some common trends. Fourteen of 22 responding countries have included e-government in their crisis response packages. Countries are generally looking into: improving performance and reducing waste in the public sector; making strategic investments in new and innovative key e-government areas; accelerating public spending on e-government; rebuilding trust with citizens; improving the quality of public services; and transforming the public sector by using e-government as a key lever.

The importance of having e-governments' broader strategic potential in mind as part of their economic policy framework has been emphasised by some countries' strategic investment priorities using public sector innovation to spearhead new technological breakthroughs (e.g. ICT security, open source, broadband coverage, and "green IT"). Using the funding of the crisis response to further develop innovative and necessary e-government solutions, can be viewed in those countries as sowing the seeds for new start-ups or business opportunities – thus supporting a long-term sustainable economic growth strategy.

Future work on e-government might benefit from greater insight into how e-government impacts the economy and subsequently, how these impacts can be measured consistently.

Privacy and Security Risks when Authenticating on the Internet with European eID Cards

Whenever people use internet services, the first steps they take are usually identification (they input their names) and authentication (they prove that it is them). How they actually identify and authenticate themselves depends on the security level of the application. The means used can vary from a simple combination of username and password, through a secret PIN, to a PIN generated by some external device or a smart card using cryptography.

Smart cards are being used increasingly for authentication purposes. Many European identity cards now contain a smart-card chip, equipped with functionalities for online authentication. They are usually called 'electronic identity cards' (eID cards). This report focuses on authentication using smart cards and compares this approach with other common means of authentication.

The requirements for differing online applications exhibit a wide variety; whereas for some services a high level of security is required, in other areas the protection of the card holder's privacy is the first priority. The main purpose of this paper is to help define a comprehensive list of requirements for national ID cards in order to ensure that they are as flexible and as multi-purpose as possible.

In the last section of this report several conclusions are drawn, which were reached with the help of a thorough risk assessment of smart-card based authentication on the basis of two use-cases: online banking and social networking. The assets for these two use-cases will be defined, the vulnerabilities will be identified, and threats and risks will be derived in order to draw conclusions. This risk assessment will follow the methodologies of the ENISA 'Emerging and Future Risk' (EFR) Framework.

The main conclusions of the discussion are:

electronic identity cards offer secure, reliable electronic authentication to internet services, and
a privacy-protecting universally applicable eID card is technologically feasible.

Expert Group proposes European Framework for e-Invoicing

The European Commission has published yesterday [30 November 2009] the report of the Expert Group on e-Invoicing. The group had been mandated to design a European e-Invoicing framework, contributing to the uptake of open and interoperable electronic invoicing solutions within the European Union (EU). Particular emphasis is put on the needs of SMEs. The report, which does not necessarily represent the views of the Commission, will be open for consultation until 26 February 2010.




The report together with information on the consultation is available at: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2009/e-invoicing_en.htm

The report and its recommendations

The Expert Group has defined its proposed framework as a set of recommendations promoting e-invoicing within the EU. The report calls for action in a number of areas in order to accelerate the uptake of e-Invoicing, especially among SMEs:

The group sets out a vision for the future European e-Invoicing environment in which it expects e-Invoicing to become the predominant invoicing method throughout Europe within a period of five to eight years.
To ensure widespread adoption of e-Invoicing, the report recommends meeting the needs of SMEs as a priority focus by concentrating on a list of specific business requirements.
The report calls for more harmonisation of the legal and VAT framework across the EU on the basis of equal treatment between paper and e-Invoices and supported by a Code of Practice developed by the Expert Group.
The group recommends the creation of an e-Invoicing environment in which it is easy for invoice senders and receivers to reach each other, while using common invoice content standards.
The report gives guidance for the implementation of the recommendations at Member State and EU level.
Next steps

The report is open for consultation until 26 February 2010.



Further information:

Report of the Expert Group on e-Invoicing and information on the consultation
EU Single Market thematic website on Europa - E-Invoicing page
European Commission Directorate-General for Entreprise and Industry - E-Invoicing page

Over thirty MEPs from seven Member States support free software

Of the 232 candidates for the European Parliament who pledged their support for free and open source software, 34 have been elected. They are from Belgium, France, Greece, Italy, Spain, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom.




The Members of the European Parliement (MEPs) who signed the 'Free Software Pact' can be found in all six political groups of the European Parliament.

The French free software advocacy group 'April' published the results of its European campaign last month. The organisation said it will brief the group of MEPs on topics such as Digital Rights Management, patents and the Telecom Package.

'April' and its Italian counterpart the 'Associazione per il Software Libero' began their campaign at the end of March 2009. They wanted citizens to approach candidates, bring them up-to-date regarding free software and ask them to express their support for it. The names of candidates who pledged support are published on the website of the Free Software Pact.

Their efforts were later joined by organisations and individuals in ten countries, said Alix Cazenave, the spokesperson of 'April'. For instance, in Spain, the open source group Hispalinux joined. The campaign moreover received contributions from individuals in Belgium, Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands.

The Free Software Pact is helping 'April' and the other groups improve contact with the MEPs, explains Cazenave. The MEPs will be involved in thorny issues such as the revision of the European Copyright Directive and patents, she says. "It is vital that MEPs take organisations representing civil society as seriously as they do with multinationals."

EU: Social Software as a Tool for the Social Inclusion of Marginalised Youngsters

Can ICT, and more specifically social software, support the social inclusion of marginalised youngsters? What is the role of welfare organisations working with such youngsters in this story and what are the main challenges that need to be overcome when using social software as a tool to alleviate social exclusion?

This paper presents the preliminary findings of the INCLUSO project, bringing together the results from a literature study, focus group interviews with welfare organisations and youngsters and 4 pilot projects throughout Europe. INCLUSO is a research project funded by the European Commission's 7th Framework programme. The project aims to define and explore the challenges and opportunities met when social software is used by welfare organisations working with marginalised youngsters as a tool to support their approach on alleviating social exclusion.

Positioning paper presented at the IDC2009 workshop: Digital Technologies and Marginalized Youth- Reducing the Gap, on 3 June 2009, in Como, Italy.

EU: Commission consults the public on the modernisation of ICT standardisation

In the White Paper entitled 'Modernising ICT Standardisation in the EU - The Way Forward', the European Commission describes some of the dramatic changes which have taken place in the ICT standardisation landscape over the last decade and invites comments from all interested parties on the possible actions which could be taken to adapt to these changes.



The online questionnaire may be found online under the following link: http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=ICTstandardisation.

The consultation closes on 15 September 2009.

The questions are split into two sections, namely: "Identification" and "Specific questions". The specific questions are optional and respondents may therefore reply to all, none or a selection of them. Respondents are however strongly encouraged to respond to as many questions as possible, so as to help ensure the best possible results from the public consultation.

There are additional questions for respondents who represent an organisation. Only one questionnaire should be submitted per organisation.

ISACA research: Building the Business Case for COBIT® and Val IT™: Executive Briefing

The majority of today’s business processes depend heavily upon an IT organisation and supporting processes that function well. To
ensure that investments in IT generate the required business value and that risks associated with IT are mitigated, a specific focus on enterprise governance of IT is required. Enterprise governance of IT can be seen as an integral part of enterprise governance since it addresses the definition and implementation of processes, structures and relational mechanisms in the enterprise that enable both the business and IT to execute their responsibilities in support of business/IT alignment and the creation of business value (Van Grembergen and De Haes, 2009). Investments in enterprise governance of IT practices and adoption of typical frameworks, such as CobiT and Val IT, are increasing and enterprises appreciate their practical relevance. But implementing these practices requires a reasonable amount of effort since enterprises must evaluate and re-think their processes. Investing in IT-related governance and management practices is, therefore, often perceived as costly and complex, while return in short- and long-term value is difficult to measure in tangible (financial) outcomes.

This research explores and demonstrates the business value of CobiT and Val IT. The project was commissioned by ISACA and executed by the IT Alignment and Governance Research Institute of the University of Antwerp Management School (UAMS).

Building the Business Case for COBIT® and Val IT™: Executive Briefing (PDF, 1.9M) Jun 2009
Available for free download at:
http://www.isaca.org/download
http://www.isaca.org/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm?ContentID=50791