Privacy by Design and Administrative Efficiency in E-Governance : a Case Study

Achieving administrative e ciency is one of the objectives pursued by e-governance. Many aspects of government to citizen and government to business exchanges may be streamlined through an adequate use of information and communication technologies (ICT). However, among the various challenges facing e-governance, legal issues regarding data protection and privacy are often perceived as curbing the full potential of ICT regarding e ciency. In this paper, we introduce a decentralized information management model used for the development of e-government in Belgium and that illustrates how privacy and e ciency dot not have to be opposing forces. We discuss the key aspects of this model and how it complies to the principles of a privacy by design approach. We assess its overall strengths and weaknesses as well as its potential to support further legal requisites such as the right to information and transparency.