A quick update from the Ministerial eGovernment conference in Lisbon, where the text of the conference's Ministerial Declaration has just been released. This Declaration follows on from the one which emerged from the Manchester eGovernment conference in November 2005, and also has to be set in the context of other major EU instruments such as the Service Directive... all of which can make for somewhat heavy reading, as the formal nods are made to all the various documents, strategies and policy statements which the drafters have to acknowledge...
The four headline items of the Declaration are these:
1 - Cross-border interoperability,
2 - Reduction of administrative burden,
3 - Inclusive eGovernment,
4 - Transparency and democratic engagement.
I know I occasionally make this kind of promise, but I really am going to try and revisit each of these points in subsequent posts to go into them in a little more detail, especially from the prespective of public policy in identity and privacy. On that note, the first thing you might notice is that there's nothing in those headline items about identity and privacy... but panic not: after setting out the four main recommendations, the document does go on to bundle in a number of others which for whatever reason did not make it into the 'big four'. They include:
- engaging in a technology-mediated process of transformational change,
- promoting privacy and protection of identity, while making 'comprehensive use' of electronic identity and authentication...,
- exploring the potential of eGovernment to contribute to climate protection and energy savings, by reducing pollution and consumption,
- a general exhortation to exploit eGovernment for the twin aims of growth and job creation.
So whatever your particular policy hobby-horse, there's a fair chance of finding something in the Declaration to hitch it to, with one exception: I haven't found anything in there yet which mentions the sordid subject of money.
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