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.