New developments driven by IoT and M2M - cities leading the chargeSmart Societies based on Big Data.
M2M (machine-to-machine) and IoT (Internet of Things) linked to data analytics (big data) developments are accelerating, and as more companies enter this sector and spend money on developing it, we will see further astonishing innovations emerge over the next few years. Applications are already being used in infrastructure, telecommunications, healthcare, education as well as in government; we will address this in detail in this report.
Expectations for usage of 'one-stop-shop' portals have not been met, says Glenn Archer Government portals have been used for decades to provide information to citizens, as well as simplify and consolidate online services, but there’s no denying that there has been mixed success over the years.
Good portals, however, drive service improvement and value, and represent an ideal transition platform to digital government. We have seen an obvious change in the application of portals in recent years.
Read more: AU: Evolving citizen portals to enable digital government
The winners of the 2015 Australian Government ICT Awards have been recognised for initiatives in eGovernment and excellence in the use of ICT.
The Australian Taxation Office won the Overall Excellence in eGovernment Award and was the Service Delivery Category Award Winner for its myTax initiative which the judges said made participation in the tax system "as easy as possible" and "minimises the cost and time involved in meeting this obligation"
Australia is bucking the global trend in declining public sector spending on IT and technology products, with federal, state and local governments here forecast to grow by 5.8% to $10.8 billion by the end of this year, and to almost $12 billion by 2019.
And, across the Tasman, New Zealand public sector technology spending is forecast to grow 2.5% to almost NZ$1.65 billion this year, growing to more than $1.8 billion by 2019.
Read more: Australia bucks global decline in public sector IT, technology spending
Security, privacy safeguards not up to scratch.
The Australian Government plans to revamp the troubled PCEHR e-health records scheme to change patient participation from the current opt-in model to opt-out.
In line with the 2013 Royle Review, patient data from hospitals, general practice, pathology and pharmacy will be added by default to a central longitudinal health record, unless patients take steps (yet to be specified) to disable sharing.
Read more: AU: Why the Govt can't simply go opt-out for e-health