Lazo Bozarov (47) is employed as a local government information services manager.
“Over the past few years, we have made considerable advances in municipal services. For example, it is now possible to easily report a loose paving stone using your mobile phone. The system works according to objects or coordinates; you simply attach a photograph and your report is recorded immediately.
By using open data, we are able to encourage citizen participation. But that is as far as it goes. From a technical viewpoint, it should also be possible to keep citizens far better informed of progress; and when planning work, to automatically take account of already planned maintenance schedules.”
Consensus culture
“Technology is not the problem; we in government should be able to offer apps that are just as
user-friendly as those supplied by the banks. What sometimes holds us back is our consensus culture. Instead of demanding open standards from our suppliers, we go in search of common ground. In practice, that sometimes makes our systems unnecessarily expensive. That is why the VNG (Association of Netherlands Municipalities) recently launched its Organising Together Taskforce. Instead of coming up with an idea 388 times, we will jointly come up with just one single idea, and use it 388 times.”
Digital identity
“Today’s solutions, such as DigiD, are no longer the most forward-thinking possibilities out there. Consider digital identity, for example: a unique digital code on your mobile phone that enables you as an individual citizen to settle everything for yourself. Just think how useful that would be when registering a birth, taking out a mortgage, or in numerous other life events. It would even make it possible for individual citizens to decide who will be granted access to what data for what purpose and for how long. Only then is the focus truly on the individual!”