Call to boost reliability of electronic voting: The Foundation for Information Policy Research (FIPR) and the so-called Free E-democracy Project have launched a Europe-wide campaign to beef up the reliability of electronic voting. The FIPR, an independent think tank for Internet policy in Britain, and the Free E-democracy Project, which advocates the use of free software in government, claim that computerised voting is prone to error and tampering. The two groups have called for concerned parties to endorse a statement calling for the introduction of a "voter-verifiable audit trail" for e-voting. According to the statement, voter-verifiable voting involves the creation of "a permanent record of each vote that can be checked for accuracy by the voter before the vote is submitted, and is difficult or impossible to alter after it has been checked." The groups said that the release of the statement had been timed to influence decision makers and educate the public in advance of the 2004 European elections, when a number of countries will trial e-voting. The statement can be viewed here.
UK citizens ill-informed about data sharing: The majority of UK citizens are ill-informed about how and why government bodies share personal data, according to new research. A survey carried out for the Department for Constitutional Affairs by the MORI Social Research Institute found that 64 percent of people said they were not well-informed about how public bodies handle personal information. Some 27 percent of survey respondents were unable to give a reason why public services share information. Those who were able to answer the question provided both positive and negative reasons, ranging from improving efficiency and stopping fraud to keeping track of people and selling information for marketing purposes. In other interesting findings, the survey showed that 74 percent of respondents did not know how to find out what personal data government services held about them, while 53 percent did not know what their rights were with regard to their personal information.
Almost half of Australians have used e-government: Almost half of all citizens and nearly 60 percent of businesses have used e-government services in Australia, according to a recent study by the National Office for the Information Economy (NOIE). According to the "E-government Benefits Study," around 80 percent of respondents to a survey said they had gained moderate or significant social benefits from on-line government facilities, while 45 percent said they had saved money through the use of e-government. The study predicts that demand for e-government services is set to grow by more than 30 percent every year. Still, the majority of those surveyed said there was plenty of room for improvement with regard to e-services. Among the suggestions made for improvement were the personalisation of content on government Web sites and the integration of services across agencies at all levels of government. The Australian government has e-enabled more than 1,600 services to date.
EDS wins government contract after protest: EDS has won a contract with the US General Services Administration to manage its E-Travel on-line travel system. The IT services giant will join Carlson Wagonlit Government Travel and Northrop Grumman's Mission Systems unit in providing on-line travel management services for the GSA. It is estimated that the ten-year contract could be worth USD450 million. EDS had protested after the contract was awarded to Carlson Wagonlit and Northrop Grumman, claiming that the GSA did not properly evaluate all the vendors in the competition. The GSA said that it had decided to re-open the competition, averting the need to defend its decision to the General Accounting Office. The government agency allowed all of the shortlisted bidders to once again present their proposed services, conduct further negotiations, and revise their proposals. EDS claims that its system will reduce costs for government travellers by as much as 50 percent.
Cape Town wins e-government award: The city of Cape Town in South Africa won the prize for e-government at the recent Africa Information and Communication Technology annual awards ceremony. According to a report in the Cape Times, the city's officials have spent ZAR360 million (EUR45 million) on implementing an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) system over the past three years, and the authorities say the money will be recouped over the next five years. The system integrates legacy systems from a number of municipalities and provides a new billing system for the city. Other notable ICT developments by the city include its SmartCape Access project, whereby PCs with Internet access are placed in public libraries. Cape Town's deputy mayor, Pierre Uys, said the city was committed to using technology to improve service delivery and to providing access to ICT to all communities.
Quelle: Electric News, 12.11.2003
