E-governmental services in the Baltic Sea Region

This paper will present results of the surveys and new trends which were related to e-governmental issues. A common understanding of e-government is usage of ICT means in the public sector for delivering information and services to its customers and enterprises. The objective is improvement of public services and strengthening democratic processes. E-government is a popular topic in the political agenda throughout the Baltic Sea Region (BSR) with all countries having ICT development strategies, policies or agendas. However, often are missing goals for thematic developments which would take into account the needs of potential users. The structure of the paper is ordered to present firstly, the overall objectives of e-governance and e-services. Secondly, the data about the satisfaction level of enterprises for e-services is given. As there are not many comparable results available about the needs of the enterprises, the paper is based on two main sources. One of the important outcomes of the LogOn Baltic project was to provide empirical data about satisfaction level of enterprises with existing eservices and about the needs for new services. The aim of the INTERREG III B project LogOn Baltic was to present solutions for improving the interplay between Logistics and Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) competence and spatial planning, strengthening the small and medium-sized enterprises' (SMEs) competitiveness in the BSR. The ICT-related results of the LogOn Baltic project provide an overview of the existing ICT structures and services in the BSR, mainly based on a web-based scientific survey with nearly 1,100 responses. A second source is the survey on the satisfaction level with public services among enterprises in Estonia in the City of Tallinn, which shows similar trends with the LogOn Baltic project. The third part of the paper introduces some case studies on innovative e-services in Estonia and Germany together with the European initiative for the BSR to improve e-services for companies. --

FASME - A Step Towards European eGovernment Solutions

The ongoing European integration on a political and economic level leads to an increasing mobility of European citizens. In this paper we describe the generic problems addressed by the European Research Project FASME (Facilitating Administrative Services for Mobile Europeans). We propose a citizen-centric civil registration process based on JavaCards and discuss cultural and technical problems that need to be addressed in interstate e-government solutions. The status quo of administrative processes in Europe, the electronic document handling concept and research implications of the FASME system architecture are considere

Deliberative Democracy in the EU. Countering Populism with Participation and Debate. CEPS Paperback

Elections are the preferred way to freely transfer power from one term to the next and from one political party or coalition to another. They are an essential element of democracy. But if the process of power transfer is corrupted, democracy risks collapse. Reliance on voters, civil society organisations and neutral observers to fully exercise their freedoms as laid down in international human rights conventions is an integral part of holding democratic elections. Without free, fair and regular elections, liberal democracy is inconceivable. Elections are no guarantee that democracy will take root and hold, however. If the history of political participation in Europe over the past 800 years is anything to go by, successful attempts at gaining voice have been patchy, while leaders’ attempts to silence these voices and consolidate their own power have been almost constant (Blockmans, 2020). Recent developments in certain EU member states have again shown us that democratically elected leaders will try and use majoritarian rule to curb freedoms, overstep the constitutional limits of their powers, protect the interests of their cronies and recycle themselves through seemingly free and fair elections. In their recent book How Democracies Die, two Harvard professors of politics write: “Since the end of the Cold War, most democratic breakdowns have been caused not by generals and soldiers but by elected governments themselves” (Levitsky and Ziblatt, 2018)

Quantum surveillance and 'shared secrets'. A biometric step too far? CEPS Liberty and Security in Europe, July 2010

It is no longer sensible to regard biometrics as having neutral socio-economic, legal and political impacts. Newer generation biometrics are fluid and include behavioural and emotional data that can be combined with other data. Therefore, a range of issues needs to be reviewed in light of the increasing privatisation of ‘security’ that escapes effective, democratic parliamentary and regulatory control and oversight at national, international and EU levels, argues Juliet Lodge, Professor and co-Director of the Jean Monnet European Centre of Excellence at the University of Leeds, U

When the EU qualified electronic signature becomes an information services preventer

Paweł Krawczyk has spent a decade in consulting on information security with a special focus on authentication and the digital signature. In this article, he discusses the practical failure of the qualified electronic signature (a digital signature) across Europe,illustrating that other forms of electronic signature are used far more readily, suggesting that the qualified electronic signature exist in a parallel reality, and that it is only used because governments pass laws to force people to use them

The Development of eHealth in an Enlarged EU: Synthesis Report

In 2005, IPTS launched a project which aimed to assess the developments in eGoverment, eHealth and eLearning in the 10 New Member States at national, and cross-country level. At that time, the 10 New Member States were Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovenia and Slovakia. A report for each country was produced, describing its government and health systems and the role played by eGovernment and eHealth within these systems. Each report then analyzes, on the basis of desk research and expert interviews, the major achievements, shortcomings, drivers and barriers in the development of eGovernment and eHealth in one of the countries in question. This analysis provides the basis for the identification and discussion of national policy options to address the major challenges and to suggest R&D issues relevant to the needs of each country. In addition to national monographs, the project has delivered three synthesis reports, which offers an integrated view of the developments of each application domain in the New Member States. This report gives a comparative assessment of eHealth policies and institutions, problems and achievements with eHealth in the EU10. It also shows the examples of best practices with in eHealth developments, analyses the possible policy options at local, regional, national and European levels and highlights the most important future technical and non-technical R&D challenges specific to eHealth. Furthermore, a prospective report looking across and beyond the development of the eGoverment, eHealth and eLearning areas has been developed to summarize policy challenges and options for the development of eServices and the Information Society towards the goals of Lisbon and i2010.JRC.J.4-Information Societ

PRZEGLĄD ROZWIĄZAŃ BANKOWOŚCI MOBILNEJ NA TLE BADAŃ ANKIETOWYCH PRZEPROWADZONYCH WŚRÓD UŻYTKOWNIKÓW INDYWIDUALNYCH

The article presents the structure of the electronic banking with attention being given to solutions applied in mobile banking and mobile payments available in Poland. For the purpose of this article a survey was conducted among the active users of the Internet, aiming to research changes with regards to susceptibility of individual users to take advantage of application of mobile banking including mobile payments and their main concerns regarding the using of mobile banking services.Artykuł przedstawia strukturę bankowości elektronicznej z uwzględnieniem rozwiązań stosowanych w bankowości mobilnej oraz płatnościach mobilnych dostępnych w Polsce. Na potrzeby niniejszego artykułu przeprowadzono ankietę pośród użytkowników sieci Internet mającą na celu zbadanie zmian zachodzących w zakresie skłonności indywidualnych użytkowników do korzystania z usług bankowości mobilnej, w tym z płatności mobilnych oraz ich głównych obaw związanych z korzystaniem z usług bankowości mobilnej

The role of trust in the adoption of cooperative arrangements of e-credential markets

The interest in digital identities has increased considerably in academia and practice in recent years. This can be seen by the many electronic identity projects worldwide and the numerous published studies that provide insightful narratives and descriptive case findings about success factors and barriers to the adoption of national authentication infrastructures. In this paper, we take a closer look to the role of trust on the design and implementation of a nation-wide e-credential market. We argue that trust in political and economic institutions can be an important factor to explain differences in the chosen cooperative arrangement which can range from monopolistic, purely state-controlled e-credential markets, to polypolistic, decentralized e-credential markets where also private vendors offer state recognized e-ID on their own or in partnership with the government. Following an inductive reasoning process, we develop three testable propositions which may inspire further empirical research and offer practitioners a new angle to rethink e-credential markets in the light of citizen trust in political and economic institutions

Common Data and Technological Partnership - The Foundation for the Development of Smart Cities - Poznań Case Study

Over the recent years communities have been working towards changing the paradigm of city development into the so-called smart approaches. While various revolutionary solutions have been deployed to make the cities smarter, we believe that a more evolutionary path makes it easier for the cities to change into smart ecosystems. Such an evolutionary path is possible with the right foundation. In this paper we discuss such a foundation that has been making the city of Poznań, Poland, smarter over the last 20 years, and opens opportunities for employing the Citizen Science model of smart city development. This foundation relates to the combination of the creation of a common data space, and the technological partnership with a research and development center and research cyberinfrastructure operator such as the Poznań Supercomputing and Networking Center

Large-scale Biometrics Deployment in Europe: Identifying Challenges and Threats

With large-scale biometrics deployment in the EU still in its infancy and with stakeholders racing to position themselves in view of the lucrative market that is forecasted, a study to identify challenges and threats that need to be dealt with was launched. This is the result: a report on Biometrics large-scale Deployment in Europe. The report tackles three main issues namely, the status, security / privacy and testing / certification processes. A survey was launched so as to help reveal the actual status of Biometrics large-scale Deployment initiatives in EU. The main outcome of the survey was that an open dissemination of implementation results policy is needed mainly on deployment plans, strategies, barriers and best practices. The security/ privacy challenges study identified a number of issues, the most important of which were related to proportionality and compliance to the existing regulatory framework while at the same time it revealed an important number of related actions aiming at ensuring both data security and privacy. The aim of the Bio Testing Europe study was double: to identify and collect comparable and certified results under different technologies, vendors and environments situations and to feed in this information to animate discussion among the members of a European network which would enhance the European testing and certification capacity. The study presents an integrated picture of the identified issues as well as a number of recommendations. With some of the systems that are being implemented involving millions of individuals as target users it is important for policy makers to adopt some of the options presented so as to address the identified through the study challengesJRC.J.4-Information Societ