The Growth of E-Business in Bermuda
by the Ministry of Telecommunications and E-Commerce

In today’s world we expect information and services to be online and available around the clock in our homes, schools, libraries and places of work. It was, therefore, with the aim of delivering enhanced electronic government services to individuals and businesses in Bermuda, that the Department of E-Government was formed in the latter part of 2003.

E-government involves government departments working together to use technology so that they can better provide individuals and businesses with government services and information. Much of it is about establishing common standards across government, delivering services more effectively, and providing ways for government and its agencies to work together using technology.

Bermuda is no exception to the rule that in developed countries around the world the internet is playing an increasingly fundamental role in our day-to-day lives. While 95% of businesses on the island have internet access, so too do three quarters of homes. For a variety of reasons, people may prefer to access government services and information over the Internet. By providing information online, people can deal with government organisations when it is convenient for them, without having to visit the nearest office and wait to talk to a person. It also means that they can access the most up-to-date materials, 24 hours a day. The Department of E-government has responded to this need to provide a fast, reliable, secure and authoritative way in which everyone -from schoolchildren to international corporations - can collect information from, and interact with the government. The Bermuda Government’s e-Portal (www.gov.bm) provides this interface.

The advantages of putting in place the portal are manifold. It is the stated aim of the Bermuda government’s social agenda to enhance the quality of life for all Bermuda's citizens. Having a central repository of government-related data that is easily and quickly accessible to all allows for a more open form of government. Add to this the amount of time residents can save in finding the information they require and that it is coming from a legitimate source.  Utilizing the portal, results in cost and efficiency savings for the government and for those accessing the web site. If Bermuda is to emerge as a leader in the technology marketplace, companies planning to invest in the island need to be able to look to the government for assurances that the essential technology building blocks exist in order to foster growth. By enabling businesses to interact with the government in an efficient and therefore cost-effective manner, the government is looking not only to aid those companies currently on the island but to entice others to invest as well.

The task of setting up such a vast repository of data, and of ensuring its validity and security, is obviously a massive one. The delivery has therefore been split into two broad phases. The first phase is largely complete and involves a single library of information and advice. The portal has been active since May 2004 and has amalgamated the 39 websites that previously constituted the government's on-line presence into a single point of reference. Through the portal everyone can access resources relating to 12 Ministries and 60 departments, quangos and non-ministerial government entities. The ordinary person can now quickly and easily locate content relating to everything from educational scholarships, to land valuation, and from health services to Bermuda’s legal framework. The portal incorporates its own content management system which allows each government department to update their own information, without having specific IT training or experience. This avoids a potential bottleneck in making the latest information available and ensures the information is directly provided by those with the most knowledge of it.

The second, yet more ambitious, phase of the project is to provide transactional services and single, secure personalised sign-on to the portal. Once completed, individuals and companies will be able to pay taxes and parking tickets, renew boat licenses and gain work permits via the same access point. Once an individual can prove their identity on-line and then securely retain it, the portal will allow users to login just once before being able to check their tax return or make Transport Control Department (TCD) appointments. In order to guarantee security, the government has contracted a Bermudian company, QuoVadis, to deliver legally binding electronic signatures, and to encrypt data for privacy. Not only will the provision of secure on-line access give users an interface through which they can undertake critical transactions but it will also allow them to personalise that interface. Users can, therefore, automatically be delivered content that is most relevant to them, be that information on child services or marine weather reports.

Some transactional services are already available online. Examples of these include e-Tax, land tax, TCD appointments and parking ticket payment as well as other interactive electronic services such as an address finder. The Cause Book will also be available online within the next couple of months. Additionally, in the drive to improve government service levels via the portal, a number of existing government functions have been incorporated. New services that can now be confidentially completed by government employees on the site include an online diary of leave. Thus the portal acts as a hub through which everyone - inside and outside of government - can interact, in order to provide savings in cost and efficiency while making vast improvements in the availability of information.

In order to guarantee this wealth of information reaches those who need it most, the Department of E-Government is looking at a community portal education tutorial. This "demo" would allow users to quickly access the areas of the website they most need and would avoid excluding the less technologically literate from the undoubted benefits the site provides. It could be adapted to meet the needs of individual groups so that seniors, for example, would feel comfortable with using the portal. The Department of E-Government is conscious that the portal needs to be geared towards the needs of the community and is, therefore, conducting focus groups to test the current usability of the site and to gain feedback on any improvements that could be made to the site.