[WSIS CS-Plenary] On-line access to government services - and alternatives

[Kenan Jarboe]

A routine administrative announcement by the US State Department yesterday 
highlighted an issue that I believe has not been adequately addressed: the 
right to access information and government services in numerous formats - 
including non-digital format.  Yesterday, the State Department announced 
that it would no longer accept paper applications for its "diversity visa" 
program (this is the annual visa lottery) (see State Department press 
release: 
<http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/23329.htm>http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2003/23329.htm). 
All applications must be submitted through the State Department web site 
and include a digital photo.  As some immediately pointed out, this places 
those who do not have easy access to the Internet (especially in poor 
nations) at a major disadvantage in applying for the program.

The thrust of the WSIS is to increase the utilization of ICT for a number 
of beneficial purposes: poverty reduction, health care, education 
etc.  However, the function of  ICT is to increase communications and 
access to information.  What if ICT is used to decrease access -- not 
simply through means of censorship -- but inadvertently by shutting down 
other forms of information access?

Unfortunately, this substitution process seems to be exactly what is 
happening in the push for e-government.  By putting everything on-line and 
only on-line, governments (with the best of intentions of improving service 
and cutting administrative overhead) shut down existing non-digital forms 
of access.

There has been some focus with the PrepCom process on the importance of 
traditional media and community media --and on multiple access points to 
the ICT network.  My point is different: that access to public information 
and government services must be available to citizens in a format that they 
choose -- for some (like me) it may be on-line, for others it may be 
paper.  The issue is not just access to the ICT network, but the 
preservation of existing channels of access to information and government 
services.  Not everyone will ever be "wired" -- either by choice or by 
circumstance.  [The importance of maintaining alternative mechanisms was a 
lesson that US banks learned the hard way when they attempted to switch to 
an all ATM system and reduce or eliminate tellers -- and their customers 
revolted.]

Somewhere in the Declaration we need a statement of the principle that ICT 
should be use to enhance and supplement existing access to information and 
government services and not substitute for existing forms of 
access.  Otherwise, we risk creating an information superhighway system 
where the only way to get to government services is by the ICT-equivalent 
of having to drive on the autobahn in a Porsche when we also need the 
information and communications access equivalents of taking the bus, riding 
your bicycle or simply walking.

Our focus must continue to be on information and communications -- not 
simply on information and communications technologies.  I would submit that 
there is a big difference between the two.

Ken Jarboe




Kenan Patrick Jarboe, Ph.D.
Athena Alliance
911 East Capitol Street, SE
Washington, DC  20003-3903
(202) 547-7064
kpjarboe at athenaalliance.org
http://www.athenaalliance.org  
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