The Private Sector’s Role in e-Government from a Legal Perspective

Abstract

The private sector constantly develops new innovative technologies and governments are always eager to adopt emerging technological possibilities, in order to respond better to citizens needs. While this promises benefits, it can also bring uncertainty from a legal perspective. The implications of emerging technologies and how these can be regulated effectively are of great importance. The aim of this paper is to answer, how the legal framework should be set up in order to shape the private sectors role and, in particular, how the responsibility between the state and private enterprises should be divided. In service of this, we conducted six interviews with high-level stakeholders and experts from state agencies as well as enterprises and triangulated the insights with the relevant regulations and secondary literature. The analysis shows that, currently, public procurement laws play a pivotal role – the private sectors role is crucially determined in public development plans and when it comes to public procurement, the public sector critically relies on the know-how that is connected to delivered products and services.