I wonder how many years the US could save its citizens by modernizing and digitizing the IRS, DMV, etc. Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?
Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
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Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
#12Homeless / Underprivelleged?
How does moving things online work for those in poor economic conditions since they might not have online access (no smart phone, etc).
Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
#13I wonder how many years the US could save its citizens by modernizing and digitizing the IRS, DMV, etc. Tens of thousands? Hundreds of thousands?
I recently discovered that the U.S. Social Security Administration has business hours ... for their website. They operate a website that is closed at night and on weekends. One is hard-pressed to imagine the level of IT dysfunction necessary to reach this point.
Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
#14Even without changing processes, hundreds of years of time could be saved by reducing the frequency we have to interact with government at all For example, almost 20 American states require license renewal every 4 years or more frequently: https://ballotpedia.org/Driver%27s_license_costs_by_state,_2... When I renew, there's no test (not even vision), and they don't even retake my picture or let me update my height. T…
That's mostly an american problem, not a "government bad" problem.
It's not even necessarily an American problem; when I lived in Washington State, the last time I got a renewal was expedient and surprisingly efficient. I was impressed with how well run the place was.
Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
#15Until there's a solar flare and instead it's just cost them 1640 years. Or a catastrophic computer virus. Or any number of black swan disaster scenarios. I'm a tech guy and I do think that this is good news. I just hope that the people in charge of designing these systems have also thought about what happens if these systems catastrophically fail. And that measuring things like '820 years saved' are only really claim…
Black swan events affect non-digital information as well. How many paper records have been lost to fire, floods and simple decay over the millennia? At least with digital records there's the chance that they're backed up offsite somewhere
Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
#16Even without changing processes, hundreds of years of time could be saved by reducing the frequency we have to interact with government at all For example, almost 20 American states require license renewal every 4 years or more frequently: https://ballotpedia.org/Driver%27s_license_costs_by_state,_2... When I renew, there's no test (not even vision), and they don't even retake my picture or let me update my height. T…
Renewing online sure takes a lot of the burden out of the regular renewals. Of course, I'm now 33 and still using a picture of 21yo me on my license which gets me second glances from bar tenders, TSA, etc. But if it keeps me from having to go in to the DMV...
I think the point was not to renew online, but renew less often.
Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
#17Saving 820 years is great, but it would be nice to define it better. From the article I not sure if they mean 820 man years in total or man years per year or something else. It would be useful to know how much energy was spent to achieve this e.g. of they spent 8000 man years to achieve this it would change the perspective. Edit: grammar
No post body was provided.
Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
#18+1.
Careful still, public services are also a matter of human representation, of accessibility, to nurture the relation between (all) the citizens and the state (as it also is in the private sector, between a brand and customers).
Moving public services online is great IFF it does not remove at the same time a satisfying option for offline/physical access to the same services, for those that are not able to use the online access (disabled, old, unused to computers or tablets, remote areas, etc. - those are still a significant part of the people, and even if, an equal access to public services is a must).
Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
#19Even without changing processes, hundreds of years of time could be saved by reducing the frequency we have to interact with government at all For example, almost 20 American states require license renewal every 4 years or more frequently: https://ballotpedia.org/Driver%27s_license_costs_by_state,_2... When I renew, there's no test (not even vision), and they don't even retake my picture or let me update my height. T…
That's mostly an american problem, not a "government bad" problem.
I've got a driver's license in another country, and it's still up for renewal every 5 years.
Re: Estonia saved its citizens 820 years by moving public services online
#20Even without changing processes, hundreds of years of time could be saved by reducing the frequency we have to interact with government at all For example, almost 20 American states require license renewal every 4 years or more frequently: https://ballotpedia.org/Driver%27s_license_costs_by_state,_2... When I renew, there's no test (not even vision), and they don't even retake my picture or let me update my height. T…
That's mostly an american problem, not a "government bad" problem.
It's almost a tautology. All things being equal, the less time spent on bureaucratic processes, the better.
Its just so that governments (and academic institutions, nonprofits, healthcare, etc.) are the natural environments for bureaucratic bloat.