Accenture's fifth annual global e-government study

eporting and the exchange of personal information
between government agencies. This action plan is
being supplemented by status reports twice a year.
Based on its most recent status report, e-Norway:
Status Report June 2003, Norway is progressing
well in some areas and more slowly in others. For
example, the introduction of broadband seems to be
progressing well, with 65 percent of the Norwegian
population able to access the broadband network by
the summer of 2003. On the other hand, the introduction
of electronic signatures as part of a public
key infrastructure is going more slowly than planned.
The slow progress in this area will likely be remedied
soon, as the government has made an agreement
with 13 vendors to establish common standards for
a public key infrastructure. The 13 vendors involved
will each contribute NKr200,000 or deliver an equivalent
value of work to the project. The agreement
will ensure that available public key infrastructure
solutions will be able to interact. The goal is that by
the end of 2005, Norwegian citizens will need only
one digital signature to make secure transactions.
The government is enhancing the security of its
online transactions in other ways as well. In May
2003 the government approved its National Strategy
for Information Security, consisting of a prioritized
list of measures to be implemented in the next two
to three years for protecting critical infrastructure
and systems, introducing a culture of security in
Norwegian enterprises and preparing the way for
the coordinated development and enforcement of
a body of regulations concerning IT security.
As the government builds a more secure infrastructure,
take-up is likely to be increased. Norwegians
have extremely good access to the Internet, and use
it actively. The country’s Internet penetration rate is
already one of the highest in this research. To close
disparities in usage, Norway has taken a number of
innovative steps. For example, Seniornett Norway is
a program aimed at a target group of people aged
60 and over. The goal is to develop appropriate
Internet training courses for seniors, among whom
Internet usage is far less widespread. One initiative,
an annual SeniorSurf Day, functions as a local
grapevine—allowing senior citizens to find out about
the Internet and how they can make best use of the
facilities in places such as Internet cafes.
The public is showing an increasing tendency to
prefer the telephone and Internet as the means of
contacting the government. The government is
reacting to this trend with new service offerings.
For example, the Brønnøysund Register Centre, a
government body under the Norwegian Ministry
of Trade and Industry, has introduced a new short
messaging service, in which it is possible to check
liabilities on a used car before buying it. The registration
number of the car is sent to the Brønnøysund
Register Center. After a few seconds, a reply tells
whether there are any outstanding loans or other
liabilities on the car.
The government has also actively promoted the
use of electronic channels through traditional and
untraditional means. In the area of electronic tax
filing, advertising campaigns were conducted on
TV to promote the service availability. A new service
for approving tax returns via short messaging service
was accompanied by money prizes totaling
NKr20,000. As a result, 191,000 citizens approved
their tax return via short messaging service in 2003.
In all, a total of 1.1 million citizens approved their
tax returns electronically in 2003—a 20 percent
increase over 2002.
Norway’s intensified focus on customer relationship
management led the way for an upsurge in its
eGovernment maturity this year. It made some savvy
moves—branching services out to alternative channels
based on an assessment of its citizens’
preferences—and already is reaping the benefits. Its
biggest challenges lie in completing its secure public
key infrastructure and in overcoming barriers at all
levels of government, where culture, tradition and
physical infrastructure still impede true interagency
cooperation.
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