Lecture in the Rovaniemi International Summer School 2003, Future of Law by

1. Hesitant and decisive steps from e-Government to e-Governance: the strategies of public information management and law Lecture in the Rovaniemi International Summer School 2003, Future of Law by Counsellor, Docent of Administrative Law, Dr. Tuomas Pöysti MINISTRY OF FINANCE, FINLAND UNIVERSITY OF HELSINKI, FINLAND From e-Government to e-Governance

2. Purpose of the lectures • Discuss some of the technical and legal challenges related to the implementation of the concept of e-Government: example of which kind of issues are encountered in the practical life • Show which kind of practical and theoretical questions information age lawyers must be able to analyse and respond • system level approach, inter-disciplinary co-operation From e-Government to e-Governance

3. e-Governance, a demanding step from e-administration & e-government • e-Governance is radically different from the traditional methods of administration and administrative service • it is active participation, mutual communication and partnership (change of communicational strategy from secrecy via passive publicity to mutual and participatory communications) • active digital citizenship and identity • it is based on the needs of citizens and other stake-holders • full potential of the new technologies are used in all levels of architecture of administration • ICT used in internal and external contacts and processes. In other words, in true electronic governance the front, middle and back offices of the public administration and the related processes are fully digital and the role of the middle office becomes the role of information office From e-Government to e-Governance

4. e-Governance challenge • Economic and managerial: more effective and productive public administration in practise • Legal: how to put in practise the new ideas and principles concerning good governance and public administration and the access to quality and service which are fundamental parts of it. • In Finnish law the basic legal framework is provided in the Act on the Openness of Government, Public Administration Act and Act on Electronic Communications with Public Authorities • Openness Act regulates by its principles and rules 1) documents and information, 2) information system arhitecture and design, 3) information management From e-Government to e-Governance

5. Technical challenge of e-Governance • Inter-operability of systems and information, clever structure of the information resources • Techno-legal challenge: how to write into the code and information system design the fundamental legal requirements while concurrently serving the efficiency and performance objectives • everything which is on the network, systems and code level functions effectively, traditional ex post judicial control and protection can only complement the protection in particular occasions but can not provide the core of the guarantees of good administration and respect of the rights • See, for example, Lawrence Lessig, Code as Law • How would information management and system design serve best the efficiency of rights From e-Government to e-Governance

6. Techno-legal challenge • Article 18 of the Openness Act requires inter-operability and the respect of the rights concerning information • Cross-use and data mining are, despite the problems of inter-operability a fact and a considerable risk for transparency and privacy • A wide network of over-lapping information resources, particularly basic registers, are a risk to privacy and waste of money • problems of quality and correctness of information From e-Government to e-Governance

7. Example 1 on the steps to e-Governance • Vision of the Government’s Board of Public Administration Information Management (JUHTA) • vision to guide planning of the work of JUHTA • role and legal status of JUHTA, main functions of JUHTA • Vision: common, open and shared information systems, resources and procedures • creation of information processes which go beyond the traditional borders between different authorities, they shall also extent to the key clients (ex. customs information) • common information services (information office services) and portals – single contact points and gateways • access to basic information resources (notably basic registries) regardless of organisational boundaries and public – private distinction • informing the citizens if the information at the government’s disposal reveals that the conditions of rights or benefits are satisfied. Public information management would became active agent of the efficiency of rights From e-Government to e-Governance

8. Difficulties • Personal data protection in the shared informational resources and common information processes • conformity with the EC personal data directive (data protection directive is not without difficulties. How the purposiveness is secured in such system? The abuse model may, however, make adoption easier. • requires metadata on every piece of personal data concerning the rightfull use. Structured documents and related markup languages may, however, provide a sufficiently secure solution. • Requires common standards and specifications, particularly concerning structuring of the data and the contact surfaces • Requires a new culture of co-operation and commonness in public administration From e-Government to e-Governance

9. Example 2 of the steps towards e-Governance • Government’s XML strategy • accepted by JUHTA, Ministry of Finance working group memorandum 18/2003 • to promote the use of XML and thus improve the efficiency of government procedures, inter-operability of information systems / information flows and joint/shared information services • to enable better customer service: single contact ports (portals) to different services • contact level definitions, inter-organisational data interchange, basic records and registries • textual information so far excluded but it will eventually be added to the strategy From e-Government to e-Governance

10. XML strategy - continued • Technical background: • central databases would not enable the shared and participatory information processes and management as foreseen in the visions of the future of e-governance • decentralised databases and middleware –solutions include high costs of construction • XML (extendable mark-up language) enables also the integration of applications which have initially been developed for different platforms • Chosen because it is an open standard which is essentially ready • evaluation with the market-based solutions From e-Government to e-Governance

11. Difficulties ahead • Personal data protection – must be ensured that it is written into the standards and applications • Additional standardisation effort and harmonisation within the government and public administration From e-Government to e-Governance