NOT only do Singaporeans widely access government websites, they also feel the safest among their global counterparts in using them. his is the finding of a survey conducted by TNS, a market information group, which showed that over half of Singaporeans have used the Internet to access government online services in the past 12 months, well above the global average of 30 per cent.
This figure places the country ahead of its Asia Pacific counterparts.
In addition, Singaporeans who felt safe using these online government services increased from 39 per cent to 44 per cent.
This puts the country in second place, behind Denmark, for having the highest number of people who felt safe using e-government services.
Among Singaporean Internet users, 75 per cent of them use such services.
TNS Singapore managing director Grant Bertoli said a contributing factor behind Singaporeans' high usage has been the availability of services such as the filing of tax returns and the application for passports.
He added that other incentives offered by the government to encourage usage included the giving of online applications discounts, and allowing more time to file tax returns over the Internet.
The survey also found that security concerns over using online government services was one of the key worries among those surveyed.
While nearly a quarter of e-government users worldwide use the service to seek information, only 9 per cent use it to provide personal information and 8 per cent to make online payments. In fact, 82 per cent of respondents in Taiwan felt it was unsafe to use such services.
India, on the other hand, was polarised on this issue of safety with 49 per cent of Internet users reporting feeling safe and 49 per cent believing it was unsafe.
According to TNS director Alison Dexter: 'At a time when members of the public are increasingly turning to the Internet as an information resource, there is also growing concern about access to personal information by hackers and spam mailers.'
The TNS study involved telephone and face-to-face interviews with 31,823 people in 32 countries or territories between July and October 2003.
Quelle: Business Times Singapore, 09.12.2003
