Information sharing is one of the basic principles of the Belgian eGovernment. Given the complex Belgian political structure with the Federal Government, five regional Governments, 10 Provinces and 589 local authorities, information sharing is essential, if not a citizen or a company will have major difficulties in finding his or her way in this forest of administrations. Even more, given the way how responsibilities have been divided among the different authority levels, an end-to-end service cannot be delivered to the citizen or enterprise if the different administrations at the different political layers do not cooperate and do not share information.
The overall Belgian e-Government strategy consists of three major programmes: the ICT and the Belgian State, the ICT and the Belgian Society and Belgium as an ICT Knowledge Region. It all started about three and a half years ago in 2002 with the first programme the ICT and the Belgian State. Therefore we developed in one year’s time five building blocks so the building blocks must be seen as real building blocks. They are re-usable ICT infrastructure competence, a better word is environments, allowing not only my own administration to build faster, cheaper and more consistent eGovernment applications, but also the administrators of my colleagues in the Federal Government. This is very important since eGovernment should be part of the strategy of all Ministers.
Which are these building blocks? We have a high speed network that connects all administrations, we have a universal messaging engine that dispatches all electronic messages, we have collected a vast important of information and applications at our Federal portal site, there is our security and privacy environment with our electronic ID cards as the most spectacular realisation within the Belgian Government, and finally we have our authentic sources, the sources of information. Without those five building blocks implemented in a consistent way and accessible for all those who must, or want, to interact with Government, eGovernment has a fundamental service approach towards the citizens and the enterprises is, according to us, simply not possible.
However, we soon recognised that assuring the development of eGovernment applications is not enough to guarantee that the Belgian society want to use, or is capable to use, those applications. We do know, for example, that only 50% of the Belgian households do have a PC and that 50% of those who have a PC is afraid of that PC. Therefore we launched a programme “ICT and the Belgian Society.” Within that programme we work around four pillars. First, increasing the access to the PC and the internet by taking away financial and other barriers. An example of a project within this pillar is the Internet for All package - a PC and internet package at a cheaper price and with a tax reduction for those who buy it. Secondly, increasing the security feeling. Therefore we launched already, together with the private sector, safe jet boxes for youngsters between 12 and 15 based on our electronic ID cards, as well as an information campaign on how to secure your PC and internet – the MPCOB (phon) Thirdly, increasing the e-knowledge by introducing e-learning in our different programmes, but also by communicating via the electronic way with the citizen. Last, but not least, increasing the number of e-applications as certainty of the internet increases and may bring citizens faster to the electronic highway.
Those programmes I have just mentioned all have been developed, implemented and serviced, together with a lot of ICT companies in Belgium. Due to the uniqueness of a number of our initiatives those companies have acquired unique knowledge and skills. The eID project is a very nice example of this. At the request of those ICT companies we have started a third programme, Belgium as an ICT Knowledge Region, at which we support actively the ICT companies in selling their acquired skills and experience. By doing so, for example, one of our partners in the eICT project could sell a project of more than 40m Euros in, of all places, Congo. Or, to take another example, an international ICT company decided a few months ago to move their European smart car competence centre to Brussels.
But enough about the overall eGovernment strategy of Belgium. Let’s go into more detail about the information sharing philosophy and strategy we are following. Our information sharing philosophy and strategy is based on a number of principles. The first principle is very straight forward, but given the history of the Belgian Federal Administration not easy to implement. The administration was used to think in terms of its own organisational structure, not in terms of the customer, meaning the citizen, the enterprise, or the other civil servants want. Instead of thinking in their own organisational structures we have to teach them, the different administrations, to think as customers.
The second principle leads us automatically to the third one. Once a certain information is stored within one of the administrations, this information should be accessible for other administrations in order to avoid asking over and over again the same question to the citizen or the enterprise. Asking over and over again the same question does not only lead to frustrations for the citizen and the enterprise, but it also guarantees inconsistencies of the same information since it has been inputted and updated by different people on different occasions at different times. Therefore, we have developed authentic sources. These are central databases managed by a dedicated team of people who organise the input, the update and the distribution of the information within the different administrations.
The two major authentic sources are the National Register of Physical Persons, containing more than 10 million entries, and the National Register of Economical Entities containing more than 1.7 million entries. As mentioned before, and that leads us to the fourth principle, this central stored of information must be accessible by all who want to access, and those allowed to access, this information. Assuring the sharing of information among different administrations and authorities is not something you can do on top of other eGovernment initiatives who may … it has to be part of the fundamental thinking work you do up front before launching eGovernment programmes.
Belgium was a slow starter in eGovernment and there was a lot of pressure to start, and above all to deliver, ASAP. Nevertheless, we took the time to think and to learn from other countries. We understood very quickly that eGovernment was not about ICT but about information sharing and business process re-engineering. We also understood very quickly that eGovernment was not about having a lot of web pages on the internet but about back-office integration. I always say that eGovernment is all about not having interaction with the citizen or the enterprise because, at the end, who like, at least in Belgium, interacting with Government. Wouldn’t it be great to receive a service from the Government without always having to fill out seven forms. That is why we started in Belgium with the development of the overall architecture you can see on the slides containing the five building blocks I mentioned already before.
The last consideration is related to our information sharing philosophy and strategy. In fact, this consideration is not only related to the information sharing but to the whole eGovernment. It can only work if people trust it. This trust is based on a number of very important elements. First of all, the electronic communication that the Government wants to set up with the citizen of an enterprise must be secure from a technological point of view. It should be very, very difficult, if not impossible, for a hacker to break the communication of the system. After all, in a BtoG or CtoG communication, very sensitive information like salary information or diseases information in the social security environment, go over that line. You do not want hackers stealing that information.
But that’s not enough. If, for example, I ask as a citizen a view of all information which is stored about me in the national register (that’s possible in Belgium to do so), then the Government must be sure that I, Peter Vanvelthoven, is sitting on the other side of the line and not somebody pretending he or she is Peter Vanvelthoven. So half of the education is a requirement in absolute terms to assure that private and sensitive information gets into the right hands. No information sharing without this guarantee. So Belgium developed the electronic ID card, better known as the eID, which has been developed in such a way that it can be used in every single situation where hard authentication is necessary. So not only in the context of communication with Government but also in the context of eBusiness, eBanking, safer internet, safer chatrooms I mentioned before, and so forth.
The eID also contains a digital signature which allows every citizen to sign thick documents from a distance. The advantages of this eID are obvious. And still this eID is not enough to ensure every user that he or she can trust the eGovernment environment. There is still the privacy which has to be respected at all times. The more information we share electronically the faster and the easier the privacy element can be violated. Therefore, our laws are very strict at that point. No information classified as privacy sensitive can be shared without upfront approval and control by the Privacy Commission, a body that reports to Parliament. Ladies and gentlemen I hope during my short exposé I was able to give you more insights about eGovernment, and especially the information sharing, how it is implemented in Belgium. Of course, any questions you may have, or additional information you may require, can be found on our Federal portal, Belgian.BE, but of course we are very eager to share information and ideas on how eGovernment and information sharing should evolve in the future, therefore, you are always very welcome in Belgium. Thank you.
Autor: Peter Vanvelthoven
Quelle: eGov monitor, 29.11.2005
