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