The “smart transformation” of services in the country, launched by a government decision, is a continuous and endless race, thanks to the digital revolution taking place in the world and the accompanying accelerated technological developments. Looking back, precisely before 2012, the distance traveled by this race, and the challenges it created for governments and people, showed that the completion of a single transaction, in any government entity, took several hours, preceded by distances traveled from their homes to the headquarters of the entity. And time spent looking for a parking lot. They may have to repeat the trip once or twice, perhaps more, due to incomplete paperwork or a data error.
On 27 February 2012, His Highness Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, Vice President and Prime Minister of the UAE and Ruler of Dubai, made the historic decision to direct all ministries and federal agencies to complete the provision of comprehensive electronic services to the public within a maximum period of two years. On 22 May 2013, His Highness announced the launch of “Smart Government” and immediately commenced work on implementing the required steps to transform the services of “e-Government” into a “Smart Government”. Seven days a week, year-round, and a complete transition to smart government within a two-year period.
Despite the success of the implementation of smart transformation, there are still difficulties faced by dealers, in light of the multiple applications of smart government agencies together, and each individual, as well as overlap in services between smart applications federal and local.
In the file "Smart Transformation: A Journey of Challenges," the UAE Today discusses the experience of smart government dealers in two sessions and explores the views of stakeholders on ways to overcome the challenges faced by auditors and the measures taken in this regard.
Intelligent transformation and the launch of many smart applications have changed the landscape completely in many government service centers.Customer queues, congestion and long waiting have disappeared, and the customer is able to complete his various transactions, via his phone, without having to go to the center or the government department.
There is no precise statistic for the number of government applications that have been launched since the Smart Transformation announcement, but it is estimated that there are thousands of them covering about 4,000 federal and local services, with an estimated number of transactions executed through government applications annually in the millions. For example, the number of transactions completed through the application of «Dubai now» 8.6 million transactions, as of the end of last September.
Dealers with government departments confirmed that the smart transformation in government services made the quality of life in the UAE more attractive and happy, and saved them a lot of time and effort in the completion of their transactions, but raised questions about a range of challenges, including: the large number of applications and the dispersion caused by them, Inability to deal with the large number of them, with the difficulty of downloading them all on their phones in light of the limited capacity of the phone memory, as well as the overlap of services between federal and local applications, and multiple access systems.
Musaad al-Harthy said that he was driving a long distance from his house to Abu Dhabi city to carry out government treatment, carrying all his original papers and copies in a bag. Now, he says, "It has become easier. I can do transactions on my phone."
As for the citizen Mohammed Al Breiki, he saw that «there is a significant overlap in government services in many applications, as well as the requirements of multiple access to them».
The citizen Faisal Ahmed, that «the smart transformation has produced hundreds of smart applications that provide local and federal government services, and it is difficult to download them all on the phone, but it has to deal with a selected number of applications, especially those that need periodically, such as the applications of the Federal Authority Identity and nationality, and the Ministry of Interior », proposing« standardization and integration of these applications under a unified government platform, to save effort and money, and to prevent the dispersal of dealers ».
He pointed to other challenges, including the disruption of some applications for a period of time, which leaves the user at a loss in how to accomplish his task, especially since the government department, the developer of the application, stopped receiving the reviewers », suggesting« provide alternative service channels in the event of disruption of applications, including "Disrupts the interests of the public."
Mohammed Othman said that «some government agencies not only a single smart application, but developed more than one application for its services, including municipalities and economic circles», wondering: «Why do not unify applications under one platform?».
He added that «there is another problem related to the language, as some applications only use English or Arabic, while there is a large segment of the Asian communities are not fluent in both languages, and need applications supported in their languages».
Sabri Abdel Moneim said that the main problem faced with smart applications, is the delay in the completion of some transactions, especially if they need approvals, if submitted after the end of working hours, he had to wait until the second day to get a response, which is contrary to the concept of smart service that requires availability 24 hours.
Unregulated release
Intelligent governments around the world may face a range of technical, regulatory and procedural challenges, after switching to smart services, including the challenges of developing high quality integrated services, said Rami Damati, an information security expert at Kaspersky, a specialist in computer security, solutions and applications. It has the satisfaction and confidence of customers, is easy and fast, and is available 24 hours without interruption.
He added that the unregulated launch of government smart applications and the overlap of services among them, key challenges underline the need to adopt a policy of unifying smart applications to manage programs and smart applications, so as to make the most of them, because the presence of more than one smart application would cause the customer confused and dispersed His mind, which prevents him from determining which application he should use to complete his transaction.
He suggested restructuring applications and inserting them under one application or portal, making it easier for customers to access all services, without dispersion.
“The user has to put his personal data in every application he uploads to his phone, which makes it vulnerable to hacking,” Damati explained. "This is difficult if there is a unified gate."
He cautioned that some users resort, as a matter of rapid reminder, to repeat the username and password in all applications, making them vulnerable to easy penetration and seizure of their data.
The digital divide ..
And cognitive disparity
Faisal al-Shammari, an expert and consultant on digital transformation, artificial intelligence and techniques of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, said that the digital divide is a challenge that has many dimensions, not only between countries and nations, but may be in one country, or even between different sectors in a particular institution, such as the disparity of modern technologies. This is a result of knowledge and financial disparities, which necessitates the stakeholders of intelligent transformation, to increase the level of coordination in the adoption of systems and technologies, standardize and support the orientation of open source technologies, to rationalize expenditures and promote research and development. This is where our national universities, scientific research centers, national and semi-governmental giants, as well as the Telecommunication Fund, come together to launch real initiatives to this end.
He suggested standardizing service standards and mechanisms for measuring government potential indicators for smart government and the fourth criterion in the fourth generation of institutional excellence (smart government), programming measurement mechanisms and synchronizing the timing of their annual measurement, and setting challenges as common improvement opportunities for all parties, locally and federally, to address them in the excellence reports or indicators reports. Possibilities.
He pointed out that «the presence of more than 200 nationalities on the homeland, reflects the importance of setting standards to support the ease of use of smart services channels, by making them multi-lingual, for example, the experience of the Ministry of Interior, which launched its smart application in 2016 in 16 languages».
He stressed the importance of harmonizing the local and federal digital transformation plans, especially in light of the global competitiveness indicators and hoped to achieve (No. 1) globally in this area, through enhancing customer travels, intensifying government accelerators that achieve ambitions and adopting common services (federal or local federal). Engineering procedures to exceed customer expectations.
Reach the first place
Dr. Ehab Khalifa, Head of the Technological Developments Unit at the Future Center for Advanced Research and Studies in Abu Dhabi, considered that the most prominent challenge in the provision of smart government services related to security awareness. Increasing reliance on technology requires that there is a high level of awareness among individuals to deal with it, so as not to They are victims of cyber-hackers, whether impersonation crimes by stealing key information, such as identity number, login name and password, and then manipulating the customer's digital data, such as loan and credit card and other services, or extortion offenses. Ge or encrypt information on your computer or phone, and to blackmail the victim to pay a ransom to get them.
He pointed out that «access to the first place needs to build a generation of researchers and talented programmers who are able to develop and innovate new services and smart technologies, and discover the cyber threats facing the provision of these services electronically, as soon as possible».
Copy government application interfaces
Rami al-Damati warned that «there are hackers are developing fraudulent applications, by copying the interfaces of government applications, and show them in the form of real applications in a manner that deceives some dealers and pay them to upload to their phones, and provide them with their personal and banking data, which could expose them to financial fraud».
He stressed that «the adoption of a unified portal in the provision of smart government services provides financial and operational burdens on governments, and reduces the communication gap between users and government agencies, as well as its importance in filling the security gaps in the different applications that can be accessed by hackers».
He pointed out that «there are other common challenges associated with the process of intelligent transformation of government services, including the disruption of smart applications for various reasons, which leaves users in a state of anxiety and tension».
“There is no doubt that the lives of individuals have become easier with the smart transformation of government services, compared to what they were in the past, but it is important to overcome these challenges, and work to facilitate the access of these services without complexity, and to educate individuals and educate them in how to deal with These services ».
UAE Today Poll
A survey conducted by «Emirates Today», through its accounts on social networking sites, that 57% of respondents rely on smart application to complete government transactions, and 22% of them chose service centers, and 21% of the website.
Nested applications
In a survey, the Emirates Today has identified hundreds of government applications, some of which share some of the services provided, such as the Federal Authority for Identity and Nationality and the General Directorate of Citizenship and Residency, in their residency transactions, as well as the applications of the Ministry of Interior and Abu Dhabi Police And Dubai, in the provision of police services and payment of traffic violations.
It has also detected several government crime reporting applications, such as City Guard, eCream, and a safe community. In addition to the existence of five applications to reserve parking in the country, and the multiplicity of overlapping applications that provide services to the people of determination, and applications bearing the old names of government agencies have changed their names on the ground, and others stopped working, as well as several applications for tourism and destination identification, which created Distracted when dealers choose the right application from these applications.