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Conclusions and recommendations of the e-Society.Mk 2006
Download Conclusions and Recommendations of the e-Society.Mk 2006 as .pdf (1.25 MB)
Best Practices in Institutional Framework Building
- Current delays in implementation of national policies and strategies for development of information society lead to deceleration of overall eurointegration process in the region. Besides providing declarative support, the governments should urgently and immediately provide actual implementation of the projects projected in the action plans, thus demonstrating their commitment to overall development of society and economy.
- Inclusion of the governments from the region in the eSEE and eSEE+ initiatives of the Stability Pact provides solid base for building information society and individual governments should increase their participation in this framework. In addition, we recommend strengthening the participation of stakeholders representing other sectors in the initiative: education, private sector and NGO sector.
- We recommend creation of a single national government body, agency or ministry, depends on the specification of the countries. This body should be responsible for preparing the necessary legal framework, and implementation of national strategies and action plans for development of information society. That body should take care of regional cooperation and coordination for achieving the common goals.
- National strategies should be adapted to the new EU strategy for information society – i2010, at the same time providing increased support in implementation of already adopted policies and strategies.
- Public awareness should be raised that building information society is not just IT experts’ job, but that all citizens are responsible for this process. The necessary mainstreaming of information society development will be aided by using clear, unambiguous and non-technical terminology in the process of policy creation.
E-government and Citizen Participation
- Strong political will of the governments is needed for development of information society in the region through implementation of the adopted documents (national strategies, policies and action plans for development of information society) and through allocating budgetary funds specially aimed for this purpose.
- Past experience has shown that use of closed standards leads to difficulties in the work and decreased opportunity for inclusion of all stakeholders in the development of information society. In order to provide the highest interoperability level between all e-services users the governments should provide continual communication by using open standards defined by the relevant international organisations and bodies (ЕУ – IDABC , W3C, OASIS).
- Some governmental e-services are already offered in the countries from the region. However, the governments should strive at providing all 20 basic e-services taken into account in development level benchmarking by the EU.
- Successful examples of implementing e-services illustrate the need of comprehensive and systematic cooperation between all the ministries, coordinated at highest governmental level.
- Governments should make their best efforts to raise public awareness about benefits from using e-services by constant informing and educating the citizens via available mechanisms, especially through formal education, as well as increased cooperation with nongovernmental sector and media.
- At the implemented e-services responsible civil servants should pay great attention to maintenance, information updating, as well as constant training of civil servants and care for data protection.
- Taking into consideration free and open source software options and alternatives when selecting solutions for e-governance applications increases market competition that leads to enhanced quality and quantity.
Freedom of Information and Data Privacy
- Civil rights and freedoms should be protected in the use of ICT, as precondition for democratisation of societies – human dignity and wellbeing should be at the heart of e-society.
- ICT makes collection of personal data from the citizens easier, contrary to the principles of “necessity” and “proportionality” – that is why legal and institutional framework for preventing misuse is necessary. We recommend implementation of the guidelines on the protection of privacy and transborder flows of personal data adopted by the international associations as OECD on state level, and EDRI on European NGO sector level.
- State bodies should make special effort for preventing all kinds of privacy misuse by strict adherence to the laws, introducing precise internal procedures and publishing their privacy policies in all forms of communication.
- Proactive implementation of Law on Free Access to Information of Public Character (Freedom of Information Act) strengthens trust among citizens towards the institutions (information holders) and will lead to more efficient work of the institutions.
- Consistent implementation of Law on Personal Data Protection and Law on Free Access to Information of Public Character, as well as of other relevant European standards, provides achieving balance between these two freedoms.
e-Commerce, Cyber-Crime and Cyber-Security legislation
- Overall safety of ICT systems as well as of data integrity provides building of trust relationships between all stakeholders both on national and international level. Institutions, organisations and companies should be certified by internationally accepted ICT security standards such are ISP 17799 and 27001 as a guaranty of safety of their ICT systems.
- Governments should make efforts to raise public awareness about importance of safety through constant informing and educating not only for people in charge in the appropriate institutions, but also citizens and business sector via available mechanisms, especially through formal education, as well as increased cooperation with nongovernmental sector and media
- Cyber-crime cases in the countries from the region leaded to blacklisting the countries, thus inhibiting e-commerce development. We need coordination, concrete action and strengthening capacities of relevant institutions in order to decrease computer crime influence and to improve the negative image.
- A lot of must to be done for development of e-business through development of appropriate institutional framework and inciting e-business in private sector. Current offer of financial e-transactions is restricted to some segments, such is banking. They should be comprehensively applied in public institutions and private companies for cash-free payment and e-business to start functioning.
- Use of new technologies leads to formal criminalisation of great number of citizens. There are cases when many people can breach copyright without being aware of that. Initiatives such are Creative Commons and Wikipedia are good example that creative authors do not create just for money, but they have other motive: promotion, moral satisfaction, sharing creativity and helping the community. Alteration of the legal framework, that is currently focused on financial motives, is needed towards providing and alleviating the fruits of the creative efforts incited by other motives, not just financial.
New Media Influence on Policy
- Decision makers should incite and accelerate the process of media digitalisation thus increasing technical quality and wider realisation of freedom of expression. Clear strategy for broadcasting digitalisation should be clearly defined in accordance with the EU plans.
- The internet and other forms of new digital media offer many more ways for content to get to audiences and is not so geographically limited or is not at all geographically limited. Media digitalisation and emerging of new media also provide increased availability and accessibility to the handicapped people.
- States must reconsider their regulatory frameworks to account for the changes, paying particular attention to the fact that resources for the dissemination of content are no longer limited as with terrestrial analogue technology. Both for internet and digital broadcast media, states should consider regulation based on the country of origin rather than the location of the potential audiences.
- The internet and digital media provide the space for freedom of expression to be truly realized. Of course there is dangerous and illegal content on the internet and other new media as well, but states should be careful to differentiate between what is only distasteful or unpleasant and what it really illegal so as not to over regulate. Harsh restrictions on content have proven ineffective in that they do not manage to stop what regulators actually want to stop, but they unduly limit legitimate content producers. This accentuates the need for clear and unbiased defining of criteria, public bodies in charge of prevention of misuse, and transparent decision procedures, especially in controversial cases.
Partnership, networking and building synergy for bridging the gap eSEE and eEU
- The issue of bridging the gap between eSEE and eEU is political issue demanding political will, but at the same time it is to a great extent technical and economical issue, so we cannot expect that all needs will be meet at once, i.e. only with political decision, but also requires networking and hard work by all of us in order to bridge this gap.
- Biggest points which are important for implementation of partnerships are partnerships between governments, business and civil sector. Introducing monitoring tools will provide simplified cooperation between all parties, thus enabling increased control of the process and constant pressure to bodies responsible for delivering results.
- What we need for bridging the gap eSEE and eEU is sustainability, endurance, system and approach that will practically provide sustainability because we need initiative, ownership, and decreasing dependance on foreign projects, both from the regional and state aspect.
- Building partnership between governments, business and civil sector as well as international donors is foundation for sustainable development of information society in the region. Local stakeholders should more efficiently take the opportunity for acquiring knowledge and experience from international organisations/institutions/donors, stressing the needs identifying by local communities at the same time.
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