Chasing the ever-distant frontrunners

Despite widespread praise for mObywatel, Poland was only 24th in the DESI ranking, down one place compared to the previous year. In the ranking prepared by the European Commission, we were only ahead of Greece, Bulgaria and Romania. Countries were evaluated in terms of human capital (competences), connectivity (telecommunications infrastructure) and integration of digital technology in business and digital public services.

In the latter category, we ranked 22nd among the 27 EU countries. Less than half of internet users (49 per cent) used e-government services, while the EU average rose to almost two-thirds (64 per cent; for this category, the DESI 2021 index is based on data from the previous year).

We are also below the EU average in terms of availability of public e-services, both to citizens and businesses. We are slightly above when it comes to pre-filled forms (Poland scores 65 out of 100 with an average is 63). We scored best in the category of digital public services in terms of open data (90 per cent, compared to 78 per cent for the EU as a whole).

Given the advanced level of implementation of the open data policy, last year Poland advanced from the third category (fast innovators) to the fourth and highest category: trendsetting countries. Examples of open data use by citizens reported by DESI include the CzyNaCzas (IsItOnSchedule) application (allows real-time tracking of buses and trams on a map) and the ŚwiatPrzychodni (WorldOfClinics) portal for finding public healthcare facilities with the shortest waiting time for a medical appointment.

Michał Goliński, PhD, professor of the Warsaw School of Economics (SGH) at the Institute of Information Technology and Digital Economy, points out that the DESI is an index composed of many components, so the final result should only be seen as indicative. “In such an index, moving down one position is not a disaster. We have been in the bottom ten of this ranking for years anyway,” he says. “In particular, we are not a leader when it comes to e-government. The DESI ranking, whatever you say about it, reflects the real situation here. E-government is still lagging behind, although we must admit that new services are being offered,” adds Goliński. He appreciates, for example, that when he recently received the third dose of the vaccine and two hours later opened the mObywatel application, the relevant information was already there.

According to experts, solutions introduced or developed during the pandemic are positive examples of public e-services. “The system of registering for vaccinations is very efficient and many countries may envy us that. Also, e-prescription, which was implemented just before the pandemic, works well and makes life easier,” points out Ignacy Święcicki.

At the same time, however, medicine is an area where the expansion of public e-services would be most appreciated. “Citizens’ everyday encounters with the public healthcare system are far from satisfactory. An efficient e-registration system would help shorten queues and reduce waiting time for an appointment,” says the PIE expert. “The second issue, however, requiring a longer period of development, maybe several years, would be to combine medical data from various sources in order to improve diagnostics,” he adds.

Data circulation is also lacking between various government offices and registers. In this respect, we are far outpaced not only by Estonia - the traditional digitisation leader on the continent - but also, for example, by Malta, the fourth EU country in the category of public e-services, praised for information sharing between ministries.

“Besides that, cyber security issues require urgent action. There have been some positive initiatives in this area recently, such as raising the salaries of those responsible for this area in state services. This is an extremely important area - due to current threats and international tensions, but also from the point of view of building trust in the e-state. Otherwise, people will be afraid to use e-services, perceiving them as a threat. This is why the Protego Safe application failed last year: people did not know why the government wanted to track them,” says the PIE expert.

During the first six months, the app was installed on some 1 million smartphones, but was only used by a small proportion of those who downloaded it. “Protego Safe was a flop, but it was not the government's fault,” says Alek Tarkowski from the Digital Centre Foundation. “The strategy did not work, because it was introduced at the wrong moment. The application detected contacts with people infected with COVID-19, and it was released just when we were all being told to lock ourselves in our homes,” he argues. “The second reason was that we generally dislike being spied on. On the other hand, the pacjent.gov.pl system, e-prescriptions, Covid certificates - all this has been introduced without any noticeable glitches,” he adds, on a positive note. The COVID-19 vaccination enrolment system did crash for a few days when enrolment was opened for 40-year-olds. “But a temporary outage under the pressure of a sudden surge of users can be forgiven,” says Tarkowski.

Education was another critical area where the need for remote functionality required a quantum leap during the pandemic. “We entered the pandemic with few solutions in this area. Remote classes are held mainly thanks to Google Classroom and Microsoft Teams,” emphasises Tarkowski. “An e-textbook platform has been in operation for several years. Before the pandemic, out of 6 million pupils, it was used daily by several thousand, or at most several dozen thousand people, which proves that the design of this tool was faulty. Nevertheless, after the coronavirus emerged, it proved useful in the absence of an alternative. However, the second year of the pandemic is coming to an end and this platform is still not being developed.”

Aside from the lack of trust, low digital competences among citizens and companies, especially small ones, are a serious barrier to the development of an e-state, according to Ignacy Święcicki. “This is a major area for change. Lack of skills makes it more difficult to use e-services, which in turn hampers their development,” he states.

Investing in competences, however, is more complicated than developing infrastructure. “When developing broadband internet access, it is relatively easy to match funds to the goal: to allocate a sufficient amount of money, to plan thousands of kilometres of cables, to hold competitions for their laying. Education, on the other hand, is a soft subject. There is no single good method here,” he explains. “Supply, i.e. increasing the portfolio of e-services, must go hand in hand with demand, i.e. development of digital competences.”

“Ideally, we will not have to visit public administration offices at all,” says Michał Goliński. “For several years now, I have not had to carry around a tax return, but there is still a lot to be done. On the other hand, we are at the absolute forefront when it comes to e-payments. Even market stall holders have terminals. On the other hand, in Germany there are still fancy shops that do not accept cards,” says Goliński.

The highest ranked countries in the DESI ranking are: Denmark, Finland and Sweden, while in the public e-services category the top three are Estonia, Denmark and Finland. Chasing the leader, the Danes are currently implementing a new tool for electronic identification of citizens (MitID), which is more secure and functional than the one used so far (NemID). They are also trying to bring e-government closer to people with poor digital skills, who can now count on local service centres to provide help and guidance in using e-services. ©℗

Given the advanced level of implementation of the open data policy, last year Poland advanced from the third category (fast innovators) to the fourth and highest category: trendsetting countries