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UK
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Recipients of disability benefit must travel to a government building to receive payment. This can be extremely difficult in terms of accessibility and is an inefficient use of their time.
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gov.uk – the UK government’s official website, providing a central hub for government services and information.
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Political and financial support for digital solutions and a higher risk tolerance for mistakes along the way.
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Estonia
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There are prevalent inefficiencies and duplicated efforts across government agencies. Public services would be far better if departments could access databases across government.
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X-Road – open-source software that provides unified and secure data exchange between organizations in a collaborative ecosystem.
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Political support of open-source software and ecosystem solutions and a secure and scalable data exchange platform.
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Brazil
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Filing and processing divergent forms to meet basic public service provisions is not only unsatisfying but makes the country feel stuck in the past.
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Identificação Civil Nacional – provides each citizen with a national unique identity number that will carry other official information from other governmental identity documents.
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Full system government digitalization strategy, centralization of databases, data transfers between public administration bodies, and a review of data protection legislation.
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* for more information see Annex 1.
The introduction of digital governance systems, or e-governance, is often the first step in developing DPI. In 2024, Estonia’s capital city Tallinn, Paris and Riyadh were rated in the top three spots of the UN’s Local Online Services Index, due to their provision of highly proficient digital institutional frameworks that both facilitate the delivery of information and public services and boost participation and engagement, e-government literacy and technology. In Denmark, the country’s Digital Post – a cross-government digital postal service infrastructure – enables public authorities to communicate securely and digitally with citizens and businesses (and vice versa). By digitizing communication and increasing interoperability with external private senders, such as banks and utility services, the postal system further saves the Danish government €270 million annually. Meanwhile, in South Korea, ‘smart cities’ were developed to provide technology solutions to transport, public security, disaster prevention, administration, healthcare and childcare. The government of Busan predicted that, in 2022, these initiatives would save the city’s residents up to 124 hours a year, including 60 hours spent on daily commutes, 20 hours on administrative work and 5 hours waiting at hospitals.
While authorities often establish in-house departments for setting, leading and delivering digital modernization in government, in some areas, public–private partnerships help to plug the gaps in investment, R&D and innovation.
In finance modernization, ‘open banking’ has paved the way for a more transparent digital economy by providing secure data sharing between banks and third-party organizations, like fintech companies. For those with reduced access to physical bank branches, digital payment platforms such as Stripe, Plaid, Truelayer and UPI provide an improved and updated entry point to finance and public services. In the UK, this includes citizens’ ability to use open banking for HMRC tax payments and refunds, streamlining payments, reducing costs, cutting bureaucracy and improving fraud prevention. However, policymakers should be wary of commercial software or technology consultation masquerading as DPI, with vendors marketing their proprietary tools as the only solution to complex infrastructural problems. For example, the NHS Federated Data Platform – a system designed to create a common data infrastructure across the NHS – might enhance patient care, but the software provided is not a digital public good – it was not built with transparency, collaboration, or open principles in mind.
Public services need to benefit citizens, work for government coffers and strengthen trust in public institutions. Modern and transformative DPI needs to utilize digital technology effectively, but also be reuseable, interoperable and built on top of existing architecture. Partnerships, between government departments and with the private sector, can plug gaps in interoperability and help to prioritize accessibility, renewal and a unified user experience across government touchpoints.
