
This is the first in a series of posts exploring government digital transformation programs and the global regulatory environment governing sovereign identity initiatives.
When was the last time you visited a government service center? It may have been several months ago. What about when you last accessed a government service? I'm guessing it would not have been more than a few weeks ago, and probably over a digital portal.
A Wake-Up Call for Digital Transformation of Government Services
As our physical and digital worlds become increasingly intertwined, most of our daily interactions have become digital-first. Several governments recognized this shift and have developed digital transformation roadmaps for the last few decades. However, in most cases, the adoption rate of these early digital government service channels took a while to reach critical mass.
The COVID-19 pandemic was an unprecedented event in recent history that paralyzed several government agencies globally but also catalyzed the digital transformation of government services and their mass-scale adoption soon afterward. It served as a wake-up call to governments as it exposed the gaps hitherto hidden under red tape and policy paralysis.
Entrust engaged an independent research firm in 2023 to survey over 3,500 respondents across six countries, including Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the UK, and the U.S. The survey assessed citizens’ perceptions, experiences, and preferences in interacting with the government. Almost two-thirds of the citizens surveyed felt that government services have worsened or stayed the same since the pandemic, implying that governments have a long way to go in delivering a better experience to their citizens.
And governments are paying attention. According to a recent survey by Gartner, by 2026 more than 70% of government CIOs in EMEA will increase investments to produce positive citizen experiences as a critical business outcome. Which brings us to the question:
What Defines Citizen Experience?
When citizens are assured of seamless access to and delivery of services when and where they need them, it builds their trust in government. Paraphrasing a legal maxim on justice, service delayed is service denied, especially for essential services like access to Social Security benefits and healthcare. Our survey found that 67% of the citizens cited long wait times as their key pain points when interacting with governments.
When a large percentage of the population requires essential services, as during the pandemic or when the economy is in recession, it shines a spotlight on how rapidly and effectively the government can step up to aid families that need it, having potentially transformative political implications.
On the flip side, an eagerness to rapidly deliver social benefits to families who need them the most can result in setting up programs that are poorly structured, resulting in several billions of dollars lost to identity fraud. It is estimated that nearly 10% of the $800 billion distributed under the U.S. Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) during COVID-19 can be attributed to identity theft. This massive fraud underscores the vulnerability of relief programs to exploitation through stolen identities. This taught governments that the more mission-critical the transaction, the stronger its identity verification and authentication guardrails should be.
For instance, applying for unemployment benefits should require a much greater level of authentication and verification of the individual versus applying for a permit for recreational fishing. These additional guardrails can add friction to the process. Sometimes it might require a visit to the local government service center. However, citizens demand and expect a similar ease of access to both services. Governments have a responsibility to ensure a seamless experience for all citizens. Governments can facilitate the use of citizen identity orchestration for digital service access. Frontloading friction into the service delivery process by verifying the citizen to a high assurance level identity can reduce the friction at the time of accessing the service, making for a much more seamless experience. This is accomplished with a robust proof of identity and biometric capture at the time of enrollment or registration for a citizen account and adding remote identity verification for all subsequent critical use cases.
Establishing Trust: Essential to the Widespread Adoption of Digital Services
Digitalizing government services might seem very attractive on paper, but there are practical considerations to make it work as expected. A citizen enablement initiative can be meaningful when it can also secure the digital journey and promise privacy of identity credentials. When almost every digital interaction requires signing up and opening an account, it can infringe on our privacy and expose us to cybersecurity risks. Governments need to consider citizens’ perceptions of privacy when providing digital services. Only 24% of our survey respondents rated their level of trust in the security of their data with the government at 9 or higher on a scale of 1-10.
A primary consideration of any digital transformation program should be its robustness against cyberattacks and identity fraud. A sovereign digital identity program that is not robust or secure enough can make it an attractive target for malicious actors.
There is a direct relationship between preserving privacy and trust in using digital government services and citizens’ willingness to share personal information when using these services.
When governments invest in delivering seamless citizen experiences powered by robust and secure identity verification and orchestration, they have taken the right first step toward increasing citizen adoption of digital government services.
Entrust is committed to ensuring robust identity orchestration to enable secure identities and seamless access to digital government services. Explore our solutions for orchestrating citizen identity or get in touch with our identity experts to learn how we can partner with you on your digital transformation program.