Usage barriers of e-government services in Germany 2019

There are a number of reasons Germans don’t use online administration services. For most, either they don’t know what exactly the online offers are, or the service they are looking for isn’t available online, thus meaning an actual appointment has to be made after all.

Privacy and security concerns

In Germany, e-government procedures have been supported by the e-government law since 2013. Despite this, there are still several serious concerns among the population about data security, which contribute to usage barriers and prevent services for becoming better known, or, indeed, more widely used. The main issues are thought to be lack of security during data transmission and the fear of becoming a transparent citizen due to personal data being collected in one central database. In fact, regarding the topic of personal data being safe online more broadly, the general population was skeptical.

Use and awareness

When Germans did use e-government services, they tended to search for information from their city administrations about current topics on social networks, as well as use open data portals run by an administration. In terms of e-government service awareness, users were least informed about crowd-sourcing deals available for negotiation between citizens and an administration.