29 June - 5 July 2000

E-government and the new cyberlaws - an overview

Around $100 million have been invested locally on information technology in the public service over the past decade and the country cannot afford to lose out on e-government, Information Practices Work Group chairman David Spiteri Gingell said.

It is a priority to be able to use IT as a powerful tool to provide efficient service to all citizens. There might soon come a time when a person can use all government services from the comfort of his home, avoid queues and get a faster service, around the clock.

He said traditional laws were inadequate for supporting e-government. Without legislation, we cannot have e-government, he said.

The underlying principles of e-government are that the services will be easy to use in terms of speed, entry points and multi-channel access. There must be a universality of access to attain one stop shop e-services focused at customers' needs. E-services will be faster and cheaper than traditional services and available 24 hours a day.

Mr Spiteri Gingell noted that the feedback to the White Paper published by the government a few weeks ago had so far been poor.

In his presentation Mr Spiteri Gingell highlighted the laws on which the proposed Maltese legislation was based.

Quoting from the Irish Times, Mr Spiteri Gingell gave hinted at how important passage of such a bill will be: "The Internet has radically altered the concept of time, and a delay of four months is the equivalent of putting off a Bill in other sectors for two to three years."