The ability to make public services easily available online is an alluring prospect for governments, not just because this gives citizens easy access, but also because of the potential cost-savings. But eGovernment is no panacea; it brings benefits but also security threats that need to be addressed. To handle these issues on a European level STOA (the European Parliament's panel for Science and Technology Options Assessment) has asked ETAG (the European Technology Assessment Group) to carry out a project to examine the challenges and threats that the implementation of eGovernment might pose to the privacy and security of the data of European citizens and organizations. The project is led by the Danish Board of Technology; other participating ETAG-partners are the Rathenau Institute (NL) and ITAS.

The STOA project will focus on the main areas of eProcurement, eID and eHealth. The issues addressed will range from data security to privacy, usability, interoperability and more. As part of the project a conference debating security of eGovernment will be arranged in 2013. ITAS is responsible for the area of eProcurement, addressing especially the security of transborder bids and orders.

ETAG partners Danish Board of Technology, Rathenau Institute and ITAS organized a workshop on the security of eGovernment services at the premises of the European Parliament, on February 19, 2013. There were more than 50 participants and there was active engagement from three members of the European Parliament. You can find all slides on the STOA website:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/stoa/cms/home/events/workshops/egovernment