Digital public services : a major challenge for democracy

In recent years, the pro­li­fe­ra­tion of infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­no­lo­gies (ICTs) and their wides­pread adop­tion have encou­ra­ged the digi­ti­sa­tion of public ser­vices. By 2022, the French government’s IT ser­vices had digi­ti­sed 83% of the 250 most fre­quent­ly used admi­nis­tra­tive pro­ce­dures¹. France is also a ful­ly com­mit­ted player in the deve­lop­ment of a modern govern­ment digi­tal infor­ma­tion sys­tem that meets the needs of citi­zens, as demons­tra­ted by its ran­king in 9th place by the OECD (score of 0.665 for the com­po­site indi­ca­tor), with two major strengths : the area rela­ting to user data and the area of ope­ning up public data by default².

Howe­ver, the situa­tion remains mixed. On the one hand, a gra­dual increase in the use of online ser­vices (67% of adults have car­ried out at least one admi­nis­tra­tive pro­ce­dure online) but, on the other, a high level of aban­don­ment (32% of French people have aban­do­ned an admi­nis­tra­tive pro­ce­dure online in 2021), revea­ling the limits of dema­te­ria­li­sa­tion³. In fact, the Octo­ber 2024 obser­va­to­ry of the State’s digi­tal ser­vices⁴ iden­ti­fied six­teen appli­ca­tions with below-ave­rage user satis­fac­tion. By valuing the user’s opi­nion, this eva­lua­tion helps to streng­then the bond of trust and to co-construct bet­ter qua­li­ty digi­tal public ser­vices with the user.

Many resear­chers are inter­es­ted in the emer­gence, deve­lop­ment and adop­tion of digi­tal admi­nis­tra­tive ser­vices and are contri­bu­ting to the unders­tan­ding of e‑Government⁵. Seve­ral fac­tors contri­bute to the suc­cess­ful imple­men­ta­tion of e‑Government by govern­ment IT spe­cia­lists and its use by citi­zens : tech­no­lo­gi­cal mas­te­ry, avai­lable human skills, unders­tan­ding of public poli­cies and avai­la­bi­li­ty of finan­cial resources. The conver­gence of these fac­tors means that ser­vices can be deployed that meet the expec­ta­tions of citi­zens and the­re­by win their satis­fac­tion and trust.

Trust in digi­tal public ser­vices is mul­ti-face­ted, since it is expres­sed in terms of the dif­ferent modes of inter­ac­tion : it concerns citi­zens’ views in the context of “Govern­ment to Citi­zen” (G2C), those of public employees in the context of “Govern­ment to Employee” (G2E), those of public bodies in the context of “Govern­ment to Govern­ment” (G2G) and those of pri­vate players in the context of “Govern­ment to Busi­ness” (G2B⁶). Each of the par­ties invol­ved has dif­ferent expec­ta­tions. First­ly, citi­zens are loo­king for public ser­vices that are simple, user-friend­ly and rele­vant to their dai­ly lives ; they need to be able to trust that the infor­ma­tion held by the admi­nis­tra­tion is reliable, that the rules are being applied cor­rect­ly and that they can lodge an appeal.

For their part, public ser­vants appre­ciate the avai­la­bi­li­ty of effec­tive, com­pre­hen­sive solu­tions that can be inte­gra­ted into their works­ta­tions. They place their trust in appli­ca­tions that are reliable in terms of data qua­li­ty, the accu­ra­cy of the results obtai­ned and the safe­guar­ding of their work. Fur­ther­more, public bodies have needs for confi­dence that go beyond data qua­li­ty, since they need a reliable and resi­lient infor­ma­tion exchange sys­tem (e.g. the State’s inter­mi­nis­te­rial net­work ope­ra­ted by DINUM) as well as gua­ran­tees of avai­la­bi­li­ty of cas­ca­ding appli­ca­tions (e.g. the pay of State employees is neces­sa­ry for the Décla­ra­tion Sociale Nomi­na­tive (Nomi­na­tive Social Decla­ra­tion), which is essen­tial for their deduc­tion at source, etc.). Final­ly, busi­nesses need grea­ter sim­pli­ci­ty and cla­ri­ty if they are to have confi­dence in the State and the­re­fore in its digi­tal ser­vices. The sheer num­ber of pro­ce­dures and contacts invol­ved in set­ting up a busi­ness, mana­ging its finances and accounts or clo­sing it down is cur­rent­ly the sub­ject of a cer­tain amount of mis­trust on the part of the pri­vate sector.

Trust in the State’s digi­tal ser­vices is essen­tial if we are to deve­lop their use. Indeed, when citi­zens have confi­dence in the digi­tal resources avai­lable to them, they are more incli­ned to use them on a dai­ly basis for their admi­nis­tra­tive pro­ce­dures, and also to recom­mend them to their friends and fami­ly. This sim­pli­fies life for users, who are no lon­ger obli­ged to tra­vel to obtain or pass on infor­ma­tion, makes public ser­vices more effi­cient by enabling staff to concen­trate on the most com­plex actions, and streng­thens the bond bet­ween citi­zens and their admi­nis­tra­tion. To gain this trust, online ser­vices need to be secure, trans­pa­rent, easy to use and tai­lo­red to indi­vi­dual needs. It is by mee­ting these expec­ta­tions that govern­ments can encou­rage more people to use these digi­tal tools and thus reduce the digi­tal divide⁷.

The rela­tion­ship bet­ween trust and the use of digi­tal ser­vices is well known to resear­chers. In fact, in 1992 DeLone and McLean pro­po­sed a model (now cal­led the D&M Infor­ma­tion Sys­tem Model) that esta­blishes the rela­tion­ships bet­ween six key dimen­sions of the suc­cess of infor­ma­tion sys­tems (IS): sys­tem qua­li­ty, infor­ma­tion qua­li­ty, use, user satis­fac­tion, indi­vi­dual impact and orga­ni­sa­tio­nal impact. By ana­ly­sing nume­rous stu­dies, they demons­tra­ted that these dimen­sions are inter­de­pendent and essen­tial for asses­sing the ove­rall suc­cess of an infor­ma­tion sys­tem, and in par­ti­cu­lar that there is a direct link bet­ween user satis­fac­tion and the use of the digi­tal ser­vice concer­ned⁸. This wides­pread model was then refi­ned with a view to imple­men­ting digi­tal ser­vices that rein­force this link of trust.

Recent models on trust empha­sise the impor­tance of the qua­li­ty of infor­ma­tion pro­vi­ded to users, the use of secure and control­led tech­no­lo­gies, and res­pect for demo­cra­tic prin­ciples in the coun­try concer­ned. When citi­zens have the neces­sa­ry digi­tal skills, research shows a cor­re­la­tion bet­ween these fac­tors and the adop­tion of digi­tal services.

For example, the work of Thomp­son et al. shows that trust in the State’s digi­tal ser­vices is ini­tial­ly based on trust in the govern­ment itself, before exten­ding to digi­tal tech­no­lo­gies. This ini­tial trust gene­ral­ly leads to user satis­fac­tion, which in turn can encou­rage re-use of the ser­vice (Thomp­son, 2008). It is the­re­fore cru­cial to forge a close link with citi­zens. Poli­cies to open up data and algo­rithms, pro­mo­ted by DINUM⁹¹⁰, are a pro­mi­sing approach in this respect.

In addi­tion, Alzah­ra­ni et al. enrich DeLone and McLean’s model by intro­du­cing the notion of the ante­ce­dents of trust, the fee­lings of citi­zens and the bene­fits asso­cia­ted with this trust¹¹. To build trust, the authors stress the impor­tance of the qua­li­ty of digi­tal ser­vices and sys­tems. This approach is reflec­ted in ambi­tious natio­nal ini­tia­tives such as the digi­tal invest­ment plan¹² and the digi­tal stra­te­gy¹³. In addi­tion, the repu­ta­tion of a ser­vice and the past expe­riences of users play a deci­sive role. A tax­payer who regu­lar­ly uses “Impots​.gouv​.fr” without encoun­te­ring any dif­fi­cul­ties will be more like­ly to recom­mend this service.

Howe­ver, fac­tors spe­ci­fic to indi­vi­dual citi­zens, such as fami­lia­ri­ty with digi­tal tools or admi­nis­tra­tive pro­ce­dures, also influence their adop­tion of online ser­vices. The report by the Défen­seur des Droits [French rights wat­ch­dog] stresses that many people encoun­ter dif­fi­cul­ties in using online ser­vices¹⁴. Digi­tal deploy­ment, trai­ning and sup­port plans are the­re­fore nee­ded to reme­dy this situa­tion. The “France Ser­vices” centres, which offer local assis­tance, are an inter­es­ting ini­tia­tive to faci­li­tate access for the most vul­ne­rable mem­bers of the public.

At the same time, the secu­ri­ty of online ser­vices is a major issue. Secu­ri­ty inci­dents, such as the one that occur­red on “France Tra­vail¹⁵”, can erode public confi­dence. It is the­re­fore essen­tial to streng­then the cyber­se­cu­ri­ty of public enti­ties by dra­wing on the recom­men­da­tions of the ANSSI and adop­ting new approaches such as pene­tra­tion tes­ting, bug boun­ty and red tea­ming¹⁶¹⁷.

Final­ly, Li and Xue pro­pose an adap­ta­tion of the DeLone and McLean model to stu­dy post-use trust in public ser­vices in Chi­nese muni­ci­pa­li­ties¹⁸. Their results confirm the impor­tance of trust in the govern­ment, the Inter­net and the qua­li­ty of ser­vices, while revea­ling that the per­cep­tion of confi­den­tia­li­ty and secu­ri­ty plays a less signi­fi­cant role in this spe­ci­fic context.

To streng­then public confi­dence in the Sta­te’s digi­tal ser­vices, it is essen­tial to imple­ment a set of best prac­tices. One of the first requi­re­ments is to gua­ran­tee trans­pa­ren­cy of access to and use of infor­ma­tion. To achieve this, govern­ment depart­ments must pro­vide clear and acces­sible infor­ma­tion on the pur­poses for which data is col­lec­ted and the secu­ri­ty mea­sures put in place, as requi­red by the Gene­ral Data Pro­tec­tion Regu­la­tion (GDPR). In addi­tion, citi­zens must be infor­med of their rights (access, rec­ti­fi­ca­tion, oppo­si­tion) and how to exer­cise them¹⁹.

The ease of use of digi­tal inter­faces is also essen­tial for buil­ding user confi­dence. A user who unders­tands what they are being asked to do, and the pur­pose of a pro­ce­dure will be more incli­ned to car­ry it out digi­tal­ly, whe­reas a user who lacks this unders­tan­ding will tend to seek human assis­tance to reas­sure them­selves. Digi­tal ser­vices must the­re­fore be desi­gned to be intui­tive and ergo­no­mic, taking into account the needs and skills of all citi­zens, par­ti­cu­lar­ly those with disa­bi­li­ties. The aim of the French State Desi­gn Sys­tem is to har­mo­nise the web­sites of French govern­ment depart­ments, making them easier for users to unders­tand and enabling mul­tiple acces­si­bi­li­ty rules to be taken into account nati­ve­ly (contrast mana­ge­ment, colour sys­tem, etc.).

Trust in the State’s digi­tal ser­vices is ini­tial­ly based on trust in the govern­ment itself

It is also par­ti­cu­lar­ly effec­tive to involve citi­zens in the desi­gn of new digi­tal public ser­vices. The work of Brand­sen et al. des­cribes seve­ral use cases with this objec­tive of asso­cia­tion²⁰ : first­ly, the use of digi­tal plat­forms to faci­li­tate social inte­gra­tion and access to public ser­vices in Swe­den ; then, the contri­bu­tion of infor­ma­tion and com­mu­ni­ca­tion tech­no­lo­gies to pre­ser­ving the auto­no­my of the elder­ly in Fle­mish muni­ci­pa­li­ties ; and final­ly, the use of wea­rable tech­no­lo­gy and smart­phones for remote health moni­to­ring of Hun­ga­rian patients suf­fe­ring from chro­nic heart disease.

To improve the confi­dence of pri­vate or third-par­ty orga­ni­sa­tions (asso­cia­tions, pro­fes­sio­nal bodies, etc.) in digi­tal public ser­vices, public ser­vices need to put in place qua­li­ty indi­ca­tors to assess and conti­nuous­ly improve them. Indi­ca­tors can relate to satis­fac­tion with each digi­tal ser­vice, the level of avai­la­bi­li­ty of appli­ca­tions, the num­ber of secu­ri­ty inci­dents, the res­ponse time to user requests, and so on. In addi­tion, this trust must also be dee­pe­ned in qua­li­ta­tive terms, with the pro­vi­sion of clear and com­pre­hen­sive docu­men­ta­tion to faci­li­tate the use of ser­vices, and the esta­blish­ment of dis­cus­sion chan­nels to enable exchanges around each digi­tal solu­tion, to inform of sche­du­led main­te­nance or inci­dents encoun­te­red, improve pro­ducts, cor­rect ano­ma­lies and anti­ci­pate new needs.

With this pro­gress comes a fun­da­men­tal chal­lenge : esta­bli­shing trust bet­ween the desi­gners and users of public ser­vices. To achieve this, it is neces­sa­ry to meet a num­ber of expec­ta­tions : to offer com­plete trans­pa­ren­cy in the way data is used, to offer digi­tal ser­vices that are ergo­no­mic and easy to use, to gua­ran­tee the secu­ri­ty of sys­tems and asso­cia­ted data, and to meet the spe­ci­fic expec­ta­tions of users, whe­ther they are citi­zens, public ser­vants or busi­nesses. Buil­ding trust the­re­fore requires an approach that conti­nuous­ly inte­grates tech­no­lo­gi­cal aspects with more orga­ni­sa­tio­nal and human dimensions.

In addi­tion, buil­ding trust natu­ral­ly requires the imple­men­ta­tion of best prac­tice in the areas of inclu­sion and acces­si­bi­li­ty, since public ser­vices are pri­ma­ri­ly inten­ded to pro­vide a ser­vice to vul­ne­rable people. In addi­tion, par­ti­cu­lar atten­tion must be paid to the secu­ri­ty of data, sys­tems and com­mu­ni­ca­tions to ensure that all users can be confi­dent that digi­tal public ser­vices offer a bet­ter ser­vice than the pro­ce­dures that pre­ce­ded them. In this way, digi­tal tech­no­lo­gy is trans­for­ming the way in which public ser­vices are deli­ve­red, com­bi­ning imme­dia­cy, ubi­qui­ty and sim­pli­ci­ty while rai­sing the level of trust. This is why cyber secu­ri­ty plays a fun­da­men­tal role in pre­ven­ting inci­dents that could des­troy, slow down or tar­nish the repu­ta­tion of digi­tal public services.

In conclu­sion, trust in digi­tal public ser­vices can­not be dis­so­cia­ted from trust in the State itself. It is by inves­ting in stra­te­gies for trans­pa­ren­cy, col­la­bo­ra­tion and secu­ri­ty that govern­ments can encou­rage the adop­tion of digi­tal tools. It is a pro­cess that, while com­plex, is fun­da­men­tal to buil­ding an e‑Government that is both sus­tai­nable and inclusive.