E-government
E-government, also known as electronic government, e-gov, Internet government, digital government, online government or connected government, is a new alternative for interaction between citizens (natural persons) and businesses (legal persons) and the state, regional and local administrations and town councils, among others. It is based on the use of the information and communication technologies (ICT) to design, develop and implement digital tools and environments enabling communication and administrative procedures between citizens and businesses with the administrations and is supported and motivated by constant organizational and legal changes.
What is e-government?
Some tools to define and understand e-government.
E-government on Wikipedia in English. It features the definition of the concept, phases, requisites, and so on.
Web portal of the E-Headquarters to carry out all kinds of administrative procedures with the Government of Catalonia.
Article on the different problems that have emerged in the development of e-government and issues to be considered during its implementation.
Montero, J. [Juan]. (2013). Are we prepared for the E-Government? Considerations regarding the online administrative procedure. Ars Boni et Aequi, 9(2), 173-212. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/preparados-para-el-e-government-consideraciones/docview/1490466579/se-2
Book with multiple reflections on e-government. With case studies, considerations on privacy and security and reflections on the development of open government.
Dossier by Statista, database specialized in statistical data from industries, markets and infographics; with information on open government services.
Online dictionary specialized in basic terminology concerning e-government and administrative procedures.
Portal with information on OBSAE, an observatory whose aim is to analyse and publicize the state of e-government in Spain. With links to the different OBSAE indicators, the DATA OBSAE, a link to a compilation of other e-government observatories, and so on.
YouTube channel on the electronic services of the General State Administration.
Regulations and jurisprudence
Compilation of regional and state regulations supporting and promoting e-government.
Compilation of Catalan, Spanish and European regulations and support resources on e-government, by the Consorci Administració Oberta de Catalunya (Consorci AOC).
Compilation of national, autonomous community and EU regulations, and guidelines and methodologies concerning e-government. Provided by the Portal de Administración Electrónica (PAe).
First law regulating and recognizing citizens' right to digitally relate with the public administrations, as well as the administrations’ obligation to guarantee this right. This Law will be in force until 2 October 2016, when it will be replaced by Law 39/2015 on common administrative procedure.
Law structuring the public administrations’ regime, which on 2 October 2016 will be replaced by Law 40/2015 on the legal regime of the public sector and Law 39/2015 on common administrative procedure.
Law that stipulates that electronic processing must be the normal action of the public administrations to better serve the principles of efficacy, efficiency and cost saving and the obligations of transparency and citizens’ rights. In force since 2 October 2016.
Law that covers a scenario in which the use of digital means must be commonplace. It addresses issues such as digital identification systems, electronic signature of the personnel working in the public administrations, e-headquarters, electronic filing of documents, automated administrative action, and so on. In force since 2 October 2016.
Post from the blog "Legalment" on the changes to the new Law 39/2015 on common administrative procedure, which will replace Law 11/2007 on citizens' electronic access to public services.
E-government Implementation
Representation of bodies and institutions, support documents, legislation, etc., that can help us understand the gradual implementation of e-government in Catalonia and Spain, and the state of the art in Europe.
E-government in Catalonia
Section on the Catalan model for the development of e-government, by the Ministry of Governance, Public Administrations and Housing.
Article from the Revista catalana de dret públic on the introduction of new information technologies in the activity of the public administrations.
Araguàs, I. [Irene]. (2012). La regulació de l'Administració Electrònica i els seus principis rectors. Revista catalana de dret públic, (45), 215-237. http://revistes.eapc.gencat.cat/index.php/rcdp/article/view/108/126
E-Headquarters to carry out any procedures with the Government of Catalonia.
Extranet enabling communication between the Catalan administrations and the management of inter-administrative procedures. Managed by Consorci AOC. Tool linking councils and local administrations together.
Consorci AOC is a public associative body whose mission is to promote the interoperability of Catalan information systems with the remaining administrations, to create and provide common e-government services, reuse e-government apps and services developed and ensure the identity and prove the will of citizens and the public sector personnel in administrative procedures, as well as confidentiality and non-repudiation in e-communications.
Law to establish the basic features of the use of electronic means in relations between the public sector and citizens, businesses and organizations.
Blog by Consorci AOC, with the most significant regulatory news published by the different official gazettes on e-government.
E-government in Spain
E-government portal of the Ministry of Finance and Public Administrations.
The Directorate for Information and Communication Technologies' (DTIC) Catalogue of E-Government Solutions aims at publicizing the common services, infrastructures and other solutions put at the disposal of public administrations to contribute to promoting the development of e-government and improve the services provided to citizens and businesses, or internally to public employees.
The Centre for Technology Transfer (CTT) aims to encourage the reuse of solutions by all public administrations.
Code compiling consolidated legislation on e-government. It includes the basic legislation, together with other related issues, such as electronic registries, e-noticing, interoperability technical rules, and so on.
Statistics from the Statista database, with information on the main actions taken by Spanish enterprises when visiting government websites.
Statistics from the Statista database, with information on the main actions by individuals in Spain when visiting government websites.
European overview of e-government
E-government in Europe on Wikipedia in English. It provides information on this concept, the state of the issue in the different Member States, and so on.
UN portal featuring information, studies, surveys, etc., on the development of e-government in Europe.
Within the Digital Agenda for Europe, section on public services related to e-government. It provides information on the eGovernment Action Plan 2011-2015, the Preparations of eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020, and so on.
Book dealing with the development of e-government and its implementation in Europe, exploring the effects of ICT and political actions and processes.
Nixon, P. [Paul] and Koutrakou, V. [Vassiliki]. (2007). E-Government in Europe: re-booting the state. Routledge. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bibliouocsp-ebooks/detail.action?docID=356025
Book on the key role of ICT in the development of e-government.
Obi, T. [Toshio]. (2007). E-Governance: a global perspective on a new paradigm. IOS Press, Incorporated. https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/bibliouocsp-ebooks/detail.action?docID=320324
Administration and open government
An objective derived from e-government is the achievement of open administration, open government or good governance. A transparent e-government and with open access to public information (open data).
Consorci AOC is a public associative body whose mission is to promote the interoperability of Catalan information systems with the remaining administrations, to create and provide common e-government services, reuse e-government apps and services developed and ensure the identity and prove the will of citizens and the public sector personnel in administrative procedures, as well as confidentiality and non-repudiation in e-communications.
Portal supporting citizens, businesses and administrations in the development and use of e-government means.
Themed blogs linked to the services of the Catalan administrations, provided by Consorci AOC.
Article on open and transparent e-government, from the perspective of the United States and President Barack Obama.
McDermott, P. [Patrice]. (2010). Building open government. Government Information Quarterly, 27(4), 401-413. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.giq.2010.07.002
Article with a review on the concepts of democracy and open government.
Transparency
One of the foundations of open government is the transparency of the public administrations. Citizens are entitled to know about the decision-making processes of the public administrations, who participates in decision making, who receives funding, and so on. Moreover, they are entitled to have access to multiple information and public documents. The more access citizens have to everything related to the administrations, the more transparent these administrations will be considered.
Transparency Portal of the Government of Catalonia.
Transparency Support Portal of Consorci AOC.
Transparency Portal of the Government of Spain, with institutional information, regulations of interest, and so on.
Webpage featuring the transparency initiatives of the different Spanish autonomous communities.
Catalan Law that aims to establish a system of relations between citizens and the public administration. Based on the knowledge of public activity, citizen participation, the quality of public information and administrative management and the guarantee of accountability and liability in public management.
Spanish Law that aims to strengthen the transparency of public activity, regulate and ensure the right of access to public information and set out the good governance obligation to be fulfilled by policymakers. It is applied to all public administrations and the whole State public sector, among others.
Blog provided by the Consorci AOC as a space devoted to information on resources, initiatives and regulations related to the concept of open data to encourage open government and information transparency.
Article exploring whether the use of e-government improves citizens’ perception of their government, from the perspective of Chinese politics. Among the results, the confirmation that access to information based on government web portals increases citizen satisfaction.
Open data
Open data are datasets produced or compiled by the public administration and available to citizens in accessible and reusable digital formats.
This is a Government of Catalonia website which publishes public data in order to promote the use and re-use of information generated by the government. The data comes from different bodies of the Government of Catalonia and has been sorted into groups in the catalogue.
Datos.gob.es is the Spanish e-Government portal where you can find public data of the Catalog of Public Information of the Public Sector.
This alliance aims to ensure that governments are more transparent and accountable with the final objective of improving the quality of the services citizens receive.
Interoperability
Interoperability is the capacity of the information services, in this case of the public administrations, and the procedures they support, to share data and enable the exchange of information and knowledge, thereby fostering inter-administrative collaboration with the objective of facilitating citizens’ administrative procedures.
Section on interoperability of the Portal de Administración Electrónica (PAe), featuring information and related links on technical regulations, the National Scheme for Interoperability (ENI), the Centre for Semantic Interoperability (CISE), and so on.
Section of the Portal de Administración Electrónica (PAe) with diverse information on the National Scheme for Interoperability (ENI). Article 42 of Law 11/2007 creates the National Scheme for Interoperability.
Royal Decree regulating the National Scheme for Interoperability (ENI) and establishing all the criteria and recommendations to be taken into account by the public administrations in making technology decisions that ensure interoperability.
Action of the ISA Programme (Interoperability Solutions for European Public Administrations) monitoring the main activities of European countries in terms of interoperability, the national interoperability framework, alignment with the European Interoperability Framework and other initiatives. A record is produced for each country to show the state of the art.
Section on interoperability in the European Union of the Portal de Administración Electrónica (PAe). It features information and links related to achieving interoperability between EU administrations as a mechanism to improve the efficiency and efficacy of the provision of services while being a solution to contain the multiplication of costs.
Article exploring the influence of the interoperability initiatives in the information services of the public administrations.
Soares, D. [Delfina] and Amaral, L. [Luis]. (2011). Information systems interoperability in public administration: identifying the major acting forces through a Delphi study. Journal of Theoretical and Applied Electronic Commerce Research, 6(1), 61-94. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/information-systems-interoperability-public/docview/864999938/se-2?accountid=15299
Article exploring the role of metadata in inter-administrative cooperation, using interoperability.
Interoperability networks
Interoperability networks are those inter-administrative collaborations that ensure the right of citizens not to provide documents that are already held by the different public administrations. They foster exchange of information between the different administrations and there are different types of initiatives at a national and autonomous community level, among others.
Platform providing a series of interoperability services between the information services of the Catalan administrations and the bodies of the General State Administration.
Extranet enabling communication between the Catalan administrations and the management of inter-administrative procedures. Managed by Consorci AOC. Tool linking councils and local administrations together.
Following what is set out in Law 11/2007, the SARA Network creates a communications network between ministries, autonomous communities, local authorities and other public bodies, and with other European institutions and from other Member States. This network interconnects the public administrations in a reliable, secure, capable and flexible way.
Electronic signature and electronic certificate
The electronic signature is a system of electronic identification based on a digital signature stored on a software support. It has a legal validity equal to that of a handwritten signature. It is important to differentiate between electronic signature and digital signature, which is the ciphered mechanism that gives authenticity to the attached digital information. For its part, the electronic or digital certificate is the computer file generated by a certification agency that links identity data to a natural or legal person and confirms his/her digital identity.
What is the electronic signature?
Some tools to define and understand what the electronic signature is.
The electronic signature on Wikipedia in English. It features its definition, examples, information on the electronic certificate, and so on.
Section on the website of the Ministry of Governance, Public Administrations and Housing setting out two solutions of digital identification for citizens, businesses and organizations to electronically relate with the administration.
Section on the electronic signature of the Portal de Administración Electrónica (PAe). It features information on the electronic signature and its formats, the electronic ID, the different electronic certificates, and so on.
Section on the website of Consorci AOC with information on the legal framework of the electronic signature. With general and administrative regulations.
Article analysing the obligations imposed by Law 59/2003 on the electronic signature. Obligations to be met by the providers of certification services as well as the specifications to be fulfilled by the different recognized certificates, with special emphasis on those obligations related to the digital identity of the signature’s user.
Lanzarot, A. [Ana]. (2007). Los certificados electrónicos en la Ley 59/2003, de 19 de Diciembre. En especial, los certificados de personas jurídicas (y II). Revista de Derecho UNED, (2), 39-76. https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/los-certificados-electrónicos-en-la-ley-59-2003/docview/1115585614/se-2?accountid=15299
Book dealing with the electronic signature from the legal point of view, with a review of electronic signature initiatives, the European Directive on the subject, comments on the different components of an electronic signature, and so on.
Mason, S. [Stephen]. (2012). Electronic signatures in law. Cambridge University Press. https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511998058
Journal available on the vLex database with articles, legal reviews and case reports related to the management of digital evidence and electronic signatures.
Blog of Consorci AOC, with information on digital signatures and certificates, their legal validity, the new products and trends, and so on.
Certification agencies
Agencies in charge of issuing the digital certificates used in the electronic signature. These agencies must guarantee the principles of authenticity, integrity, confidentiality and non-repudiation of digital information.
Autonomous body under the aegis of the Consorci de l'Administració Oberta de Catalunya (Consorci AOC) to ensure that the process of the electronic signature development is carried out in accordance with the legal framework established and in the most efficient way possible.
Public certification agency, led by the Fábrica Nacional de Moneda y Timbre - Real Casa de la Moneda (FNMT-RCM). It aims to provide authentication and ensure the confidentiality of communications between citizens, businesses and other public institutions. This agency offers several certificates recognized by most public administrations.
Digital certificates
The electronic or digital certificate is the computer file generated by the certification agency that links identity data to a natural or legal person and confirms his/her identity. Digital certificates operate with signing and ciphering processes, known as public-key cryptography, and are based on the use of the public-key, present in the certificate, and the private-key, linked to it but which is not contained in the certificate.
The electronic services of the Government of Catalonia require identification through digital certificates or with the idCAT SMS. This section provides more information on these two mechanisms.
Information web portal on the electronic ID. This document enables users to electronically and reliably prove the identity of an individual and digitally sign electronic documents. It has the same validity as a handwritten signature.
Article reflecting on the use of public-key certificates and suggesting a new concept of generalized digital certificate (GDC), a certificate without public- and private-key, arguing that it would be easier to manage.
Harn, L. [Lein] and Ren, J. [Jian]. (2011). Generalized Digital Certificate for User Authentication and Key Establishment for Secure Communications. IEEE Transactions on Wireless Communications, 10(7), 2372-2379. https://doi.org/10.1109/TWC.2011.042211.101913
Article dealing with the problem of the management of digital certificates while exploring the possibility of a structure of correlated certificates. It also examines a new concept of anonymous digital certificates.
Zhu, W. [Wen-Tao] and Lin, J. [Jingqiang]. (2016). Generating correlated digital certificates: framework and applications. IEEE Transactions on Information Forensics and Security, 11(6), 1117-1127. https://doi.org/10.1109/TIFS.2016.2516818
Security
The spread of e-government is linked to the trust that the communication through electronic means with the administration generates among citizens. For this reason, the security of the shared data is paramount.
Consorci AOC, through the CESICAT, provides services to local public administrations so that they improve the security of their information systems and apply measures, both organizational and technical, to achieve this goal.
Section on security on the Portal de Administración Electrónica (PAe). It features information on the National Security Scheme (ENS), information security policies, methods, instruments and regulations, and so on.
Royal Decree 3/2010 regulating the National Security Scheme, the objective of which is to establish a security policy regarding the use of electronic means and is constituted by the basic principles and minimum requirements which allow the adequate protection of information.
Royal Decree regulating the National Security Scheme in the field of e-government, the objective of which is to create trusted electronic environments to facilitate the use of new technologies in the public administration.
E-justice
Driven by the efforts to implement e-government, the Justice Administration has recently been investing great efforts to achieve open, agile and efficient justice; based on the renewal of the judicial infrastructures and the computing systems.
Since 1 January 2016, communication with the legal authorities must be undertaken through electronic channels. Interview on Els Matins, TV3, to deal with this issue, with Ignacio López Chocarro, Dean of the Court Solicitors' Association of Barcelona; Xavier Fabregat, Director-General for Modernization of Justice at the Catalan Ministry of Justice; and David Melgarejo, court reporter of TV3 news services.
Web portal on e-justice of the Judiciary of Spain. With general information on the Commission on Judicial Computing, which determines the computer systems suitable for use in the Justice Administration, among others.
On the legal framework surrounding the implementation of information and communication technologies (ICT) in the Justice Administration.
Law regulating the implementation of the electronic judicial administration (e-justice), which must enable efficient communication of citizens and professionals with the public administration, based on secure electronic channels.
Support resources on e-government
Many periodical publications, books and videos address e-government from different perspectives.
Journals
Open access journal with research contents on the assessment, implementation, design and management of e-government.
Academic journal on e-government. It approaches the issue from the perspective of computer sciences but also social sciences.
Videos
YouTube channel on the electronic services of the General State Administration.
YouTube channel with support and promotion information about the idCAT.
Librarians responsible for this library guide
Elisabet Cervera
Operative subgroup: Librarian for Law and Political Science, Doctoral School Operative group: Library for Learning