Government Internet portals and single national identity systems are doomed to failure, because of high user expectations and the complexity of such systems, says Gartner analyst Andrea Di Maio.
Speaking at the 2006 Gartner Symposium in Cape Town yesterday, Di Maio sketched out four possible scenarios that would affect government`s use of IT and how IT will shape government up until 2020.
"User expectations have been set by their experience with commercial Internet portals, and those set up by government, especially those that aim to be single points of entry for the citizens, will never live up to the standards set by commercial portals," he says.
According to Di Maio, government portals will eventually disappear into the background and their functions accessed through private portals with the government services essentially fulfilling a back-office role.
Hanis
Di Maio says single identity documents, such as those in the long-mooted Home Affairs National Identifications System (Hanis), are doomed never to succeed unless such programmes have a clear role such as border control.
"Issues such as privacy and the often conflicting requirements of several government departments, which usually get involved in project of such a magnitude, usually mean that it becomes very cumbersome and impossible to implement."
Di Maio`s four scenarios for government, developed by using a similar scenario planning methodology as developed by oil group Shell, are:
* "Governing phantoms", in which a government remains silo-based.
* "The free market government", where strong emphasis on public/private partnership programmes.
* "Good big brother government", a scenario, which he says is relatively likely for SA, where government has a lot of influence in determining and implementing policy.
* "The status quo government", such as many Western European and North American governments, where the government acts as a regulator and public functions are provided by private service providers.
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