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Is e-Government Falling Short of Expectations? Brookings Institute Says Yes

Opinion
Sep 27, 20082 mins
IT Leadership

Despite major progress over the past decade regarding digital government, a recent report by the Brookings Institute claims that e-Government progress has fallen short of expectations. While meaningful success stories abound, the report highlights areas needing improvement.

An excerpt from the executive summary of the report  State and Federal Government in the United States, 2008 says:

“Transformationalists often claim that new technology will produce widespread consequences. Incrementalists, on the other hand, point to the influence of institutional forces—such as structural fragmentation within government as well as issues related to the investment cost and organizational structures of state and federal government—in limiting the speed and breadth of technology’s impact on the public sector.”

The report closes with recommendation for public officials on how to maximize the use of technology to improve government performance. You can download the full report in PDF format from the link above.

Yes, the report also address many privacy and security findings such as:

  Table 3. Percentage of Government Websites Offering Privacy and Security Statements

  Table 4. Assessment of E-Government Privacy and Security Statements

The National Governor’s Association (NGA) Center For Best Practices authored a  summary of the Brookings report. Since it is fairly rare for NGA to highlight reports which are critical of state governments, this Brookings report certainly offers meaningful recommendations that security and other IT staff need to take serious in the public sector, as well as for those in the private sector who support the public portals.  

The Brookings report ends with rankings of the state and federal portals.

Any thoughts on their rankings?  

dlohrmann

Daniel J. Lohrmann is an internationally recognized cybersecurity leader, technologist and author. During his distinguished career, Dan has served global organizations in the public and private sectors in a variety of executive leadership capacities, including enterprise-wide Chief Security Officer (CSO), Chief Technology Officer (CTO) and Chief Information Security Officer (CISO) roles in Michigan State Government. Dan was named: "CSO of the Year," "Public Official of the Year," and a Computerworld "Premier 100 IT Leader." Dan is the co-author of the Wiley book, “Cyber Mayday and the Day After: A Leader’s Guide to Preparing, Managing and Recovering From Inevitable Business Disruptions.” Dan Lohrmann joined Presidio in November 2021 as an advisory CISO supporting mainly public sector clients. He formerly served as the Chief Strategist and Chief Security Officer for Security Mentor, Inc. Dan started his career at the National Security Agency (NSA). He worked for three years in England as a senior network engineer for Lockheed Martin (formerly Loral Aerospace) and for four years as a technical director for ManTech International in a US / UK military facility. Lohrmann is on the advisory board for four university information assurance (IA) programs, including Norwich University, University of Detroit Mercy (UDM), Valparaiso University and Walsh College. Earlier in his career he authored two books - Virtual Integrity: Faithfully Navigating the Brave New Web and BYOD For You: The Guide to Bring Your Own Device to Work. Mr. Lohrmann holds a Master's Degree in Computer Science (CS) from Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland, and a Bachelor's Degree in CS from Valparaiso University in Indiana.

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