Breaking Barriers to eGovernment

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS The Breaking Barriers project team would like to thank all the members of the expert group for their valuable thoughts and comments that have helped to shape this document. They are: PREFACE This is a 'work in progress' report on the goals, initial findings, plans and background of the European Commission's Breaking the Barriers to eGovernment project 1 , which began in January 2005. It highlights how results from investigations in the project's first phase, including an online survey, are helping to clarify the most significant legal and organizational impediments to fulfilling the EU's eGovernment goals. This includes the initial identification of seven key types of barrier and the main legal foundations that can significantly facilitate or block successful eGovernment outcomes. Feedback 2 on the interim results presented here will be combined with further detailed studies and analyses to refine and develop the project's findings for our final report in December 2007. There are five parts to the document. • Part 1 is an executive summary that outlines: the project's aims; the key goals of eGovernment in the EU; the project's approach to investigating barriers to achieving these goals; and the key barriers and related legal issues identified at this stage. It also indicates the relative importance of barriers and their legal dimensions. • Part 2 summarizes the project team's view of the two main topics being investigated: the most significant categories of eGovernment barriers and the main legal dimensions to these blockages. • Part 3 discusses the methods employed in the project's investigations: a systematic review and analysis undertaken by the team's specialists; a recent online survey; plans for case studies; and ongoing consultations with stakeholders and expert workshops. The set of research questions guiding this work are also illustrated in this part. • Part 4 has papers by specialists among the project's partners that analyse in detail the main legal foundations underpinning the barrier categories discussed identified in Part 2. These cover eight prime legal dimensions: Administrative Law; authentication and identification; Intellectual Property Rights (IPR); liability; privacy and data protection; public administration transparency; relationships between public administrations, citizens and other ICT actors; and re-use of public sector information. • Part 5 contains references giving details of research and literature sources examined by the project team.

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