Electronic identity management in e-Government 2.0: Exploring a system innovation exemplified by Austria

Abstract

Web 2.0 in its various shades is being embraced in the domain of e-government; sophisticated transaction services are becoming mainstream interactions and creating new challenges, particularly regarding security and privacy. The emerging field of electronic identity management (e-IDM) addresses these issues, while governments are introducing e-IDM systems at national level to support service provision. This paper conceptualizes the transition to such a in Austria as a system and uses the approach of actor-centered institutionalism to analyze the innovation process and its outcome. It identifies major particularities of the Austrian such as the technology-neutral approach using multiple tokens and an ID-model with special provisions for privacy protection, traces their origin in the interplay of institutional context and actor constellations and assesses the pattern of this transformation. The current represents a niche innovation, indeed with a transformation pattern implying considerable change for public administration as well as for citizens. Still controversial privacy implications and insufficient user value, reflected in slow take-up, remain the challenges. The innovation perspective proved particularly valuable in identifying demands for adaptation by revealing barriers in the transition process towards the e-IDMS.