WRITTEN ON September 23rd, 2004 BY William Heath AND STORED IN Across the Board, Political engagement

The Dutch seem to be trying to rethink e-government as part of their EU presidency, which is welcome.

Holland is notable in having established a special committee, sort of akin to a Royal Commission in the UK, to examine whether citizens need different constitutional protections in an e-enabled world. By and large they decided it didnt, ie that existing constitutional safeguards were sufficient and carried forward fine.

I suppose that underlying ideal e-enabled government is a really sound constitutional basis, so that we know where we stand, and the code supports the law. Some MPs take the view for example that it’s not appropriate for the UK to have an ID system while people do not have explicit constitutional protection.

Does anyone know a really good constitutional expert who also understands e-government? It would be very good to hear from them, so we could try to set out the underlying principles. We may not have a Royal Commission doing it, but the bloggers can, and afterwards we can all use knighthoods in our email addresses.