M-GOVERNMENT
Most of us in Britain are only very slowly coming to terms with the idea of e-government, communicating with government departments using our PCs and the Internet. But many countries — apart from the UK they include Sweden, the Netherlands, Malta, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea, China and the Philippines — are working towards talking to their citizens via the almost universal mobile phone. The technique has been dubbed m-government. Examples include security alerts sent out by London’s Metropolitan police; people in Malta can opt to get reminders to renew licences; Singaporeans can learn the results of medical examinations; the Hong Kong government uses the system for emergency announcements; in Norway and Sweden, people can confirm via an SMS text message if their tax returns are accurate; and in Finland they can buy bus tickets. At the moment, most of the initiatives are fairly small-scale and to varying extents experimental, but experts in the field suggest that the rate of innovation means that the system will soon be in routine use almost everywhere.
After e-government, m-government. The idea of the state permanently streaming data to and from your mobile phone may be some people’s nightmare. In Sweden, it’s already reality.
[The Guardian, 10 Jun. 2004]
Despite its infancy, mobile government (m-government) is a growing and important set of complex strategies and tools that will change completely the roles and functioning of traditional governance.
[Europemedia, 15 Jan. 2003]
