According to the European Commission eGovernment Benchmark 2017, Latvia ranks 8th by e-government performance with results that are higher than the EU average, the Latvian Ministry of Environment and Regional Development said, cites LETA.
Denmark, Finland, Estonia, Sweden, the Netherlands, Lithuania, Spain and Latvia are in the group of advanced countries with effective e-government. Latvia also is one of the nine EU member states where the main public services are available to people and businesses online, said the ministry’s spokeswoman, Laura Jansone.
The countries’ performance was measured as an average of scores for four top-level benchmarks: user centricity (how fast and easy to use public information and services online), transparency (of government authorities’ operations, service delivery procedures and the level of control users have over their personal data), cross-border mobility (the extent to which people can use public services outside their country), key enablers (the availability of eID, eDocuments and Authentic Sources, etc).
The report mentioned that Latvia, Denmark, Sweden, the Netherlands, Ireland and Austria have made excellent progress regarding cross-border service delivery.
In addition, it noted as an innovative e-government solution the testing of verification of a social networking profile by means of an eID card which was done in Latvia in 2015 during a campaign advertising e-opportunities.
In general, the latest eGovernment benchmark report showed significant improvement on cross-border availability of digital public services and accessibility of public websites from mobile devices in EU Member states while also indicating a need for improvement in transparency of public services delivery and use of supporting technology like eIDs or eDocuments.
