Is Your Country Fake Digital Or Real Digital?

Is Your Country Fake Digital Or Real Digital?

A recent article on the Estonian e-Residency programme [here] defines “fake digital” and “real digital” in terms of the provision of government services.

And so my governments (UK and Scotland) love to say they are investing in digital services and they want to put the citizen at the centre, but they are, perhaps, “fake digital”.

Apart from paying taxes and things like parking tickets, I have virtually no meaningful digital interaction with my council, the NHS, and my governments. In fact, I nearly couldn’t vote in a recent election, as my council had moved my identity to the place that my son had just moved to.

I, too, recently, had to correct an NHS record as it contained an address that I had no lived for at least 20 years. The opportunity for some form of integrated record, which would, at least, give me a consistent identity, is something that seems a long way off. When I registered for a new GP recently, it was out with the pen and paper, and I had to tell them all about me, as if they had just came into contact with me.

I thus have little in the way of a health care record that I can access, and my interaction with my local council is non-existent. If I want to raise a concern in my local area, I need to get involved in a local committee, and then watch the clock as months and years fly by, and as my concern weaves its way through committee agendas, and ultimately lost along the way.

And so:

• Do I have a sovereign identity that I can provide in a trusted way to the NHS, government or local council? No!
• Can I properly digitally sign things with my own identity? No!
• Do I have a consistent identity across government, the NHS, and council services? No!
• Do I have any digital interaction with the government, the NHS and my council in a meaningful way? No!
• Can I get access to my digital records used within government services? No!
• Can I provide the NHS, governments or councils with a consistent way for them to get in contact with me? No!

As long as I answer the majority of these things with a negative answer, we have a fake digital world for our government and public services.

The investment in pure digital service provision has been a small percentage of what it should be. For all the great talk, there is little in the way of change in the UK and Scotland for a transformation in the way that we interact with our governments. Without large-scale transformation and considerable investment, the UK will be miles behind countries such as Estonia.

Can we have a KPI’s for proper digital engagement targets?

Can we have a model of the tokenization economy, and where we can properly identify ownership of assets?

Can we dump wet signatures from every part of our business and legal process?

Fake digital countries of the world will fall behind those countries who create real digital worlds.