E-government

What is E-government?

Definition: “E-government consists of the digital interactions between a citizen and their government, between governments and government agencies, between government and citizens, between government and employees, and between government and businesses/commerce.”

Uses of e-government

As the purpose of e-government is to give remote interaction with your government, the uses of it can range hugely. For example for Tunbridge wells, a resident is able to go to the Tunbridge Wells borough council website to perform a whole manor of tasks which includes reporting a problem, reviewing a parking ticket and even requesting a new bin which my family has done in the past to be met with a speedy response and action. This carries over to the fact that doing government processes online is more fast, simple and convenient. The fact that anyone with an internet connection can interact with community is as a result making modern life largely more functional than before where problems would arise such as timing constraints and your transport to and from the council building.

E-petitions: This is the most direct way to interact with the government through E-government. It works by someone or a group of people have a request or problem for a government department. They will then start a petition online for the public to sign electronically. This way of holding a petition means it is easier for the public to get signatures because it can reach more people in a smaller amount of time. This as a result means more petitions will reach the amount to be discussed in parliament, this as a whole improves public and government relations.

Not only can the public get to the government, but information from the government can be sent out too. This works in ways such as for a user to print out a form that is needed for a process, instead of having to physically go to the council and find it. Furthermore, another example of this is for the public to look at crime maps for a specific area to do research on it, on websites like http://www.police.uk/ you can find how many what specific acts were committed do to the accuracy of a road.

Dealing with fraud

The problem that faces e-government is trust, this is because some people feel disconnected because of the services now being on the web and as a result do not believe it is secure enough for their information. The way they combat this is to include large security measures whenever someone is logging in or performing a task on an e-government website. This includes password protecting and email verification so that the account gets bound to the user. This in turn provides a safer e-government experience.

Sources:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-Government
http://www.police.uk/kent/245/crime/
http://www.tunbridgewells.gov.uk/
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/