Switzerland

[CH] Information Society Report Published

IRIS 2001-10:1/25

Oliver Sidler

Medialex

The Koordinationsgruppe Informationsgesellschaft (Information Society Coordination Group - KIG) has published its third annual report on the state of the Information Society in Switzerland. It reports that, in the last twelve months, significant progress has been made in e-government as well as in the development of a legal framework for e-commerce and digital signatures. Projects such as "e-Tax-Swiss", "Guichet Virtuel" and "e-Voting" have all played their part. Various smaller projects relating to electronic communication with the authorities were also launched. Through the adoption of proposals for a Federal Act on certification services in the field of electronic signatures and on the revision of the federal system for the administration of justice, the requirements for the recognition of digital signatures and the admissibility of electronic instructions were completed.

As far as education is concerned, the creation of a public-private partnership for the Internet represented a major step forward. The KIG has also decided to give priority in the coming year to the integration of social groups in danger of exclusion from the Information Society. According to the targets fixed by the Bundesrat (Council of Ministers) for a Swiss Information Society, all Swiss residents should have equal access to information and communications technologies. It is also intended that familiarity with the technical and content-related aspects of these technologies should become a basic everyday skill. Statistics on Internet access and usage in Switzerland, however, show that this aim has yet to be fulfilled. For example, women, the elderly, those outside the education system and low-income groups all still have comparatively little access to the Internet.