E-Government Web Privacy Coalition

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E-GOVERNMENT WEB PRIVACY COALITION

Following the budget restrictions imposed by preparations for the Y2K bug, state and local governments were finally able to invest in e-government systems. Constituencies increasingly demanded that basic governmental information and citizenship services be made available over the Internet, as they were at the federal level, and thus vendors flocked to the booming market for state and local government information technology. Local governments thus began reengineering and Web-enabling their systems to provide their constituents with portal-based integrated systems, alleviating the need for individuals to keep track of many different electronic contact points within government. But while citizens increasingly demanded electronic government services, there existed the fear—similar to that with online shopping—that with the convenience came a price of potentially compromised privacy and security. The financial stakes were significant. Gartner Group estimated that local, state, and federal governments would spend $6.2 billion on e-government in 2005. Obviously, governments were under intense pressure to make such hefty investments pay off. Because of this, ensuring security and privacy became very important.

To address this issue in collaborative fashion, in June 2000 representatives from state and local governments and private-sector technology companies—facilitated by the e-government technology leader NIC Technologies Inc. of Westlake Village, California—formed the e-Government Web Privacy Coalition to debate, discuss, and reach policies on issues of key importance to the development of electronic government. Among these issues were public-key infrastructure and other encryption schemes, digital signatures, and network and infrastructure security. The coalition's mission was to protect citizens and their sensitive data by constructing an environment in which electronic data could flow freely and securely between governments and citizens in a safe network. If e-government is to fulfill its potential, according to the coalition, citizens need to feel comfortable that their participation in an online democracy is accompanied by the requisite level of privacy and security.

The group maintained two stated goals. The first was to devise and disseminate methods and processes by which standards can be achieved to promote confidentiality, privacy, and "the preservation of the public trust." The second was to build itself into an independent organization leading the development and guidance of e-government via voluntary certification programs for e-government portals and other applications. Certification was marked with a privacy seal, awarded only to those e-government portals and applications that met the privacy standards and protocols enacted by the coalition.

While the coalition's policies primarily were driven by its public-sector representatives, the involvement of private companies was intended to facilitate a smooth, cooperative relationship between governments and the companies that would need to adopt the standards and protocols the coalition set. The original private-sector members were Cisco Systems Inc., Compaq Computer Corp., Digital Signature Trust Co., and Oracle Corp., all of which were invited by NIC Technologies based on their record of developing comprehensive privacy systems. In addition, the Progress & Freedom Foundation (PFF), a think tank devoted to the digital revolution and state and local e-government initiatives, acts as an advisor to the coalition.