Poll finds privacy concerns among e-government users

Citizens enjoy the services offered by government Web sites, but remain wary of divulging personal information over the Internet, according to a poll released Monday by a nonpartisan government advocacy group.

About 45 percent of more than 1,000 who responded to the February poll on electronic government said they would not mind submitting personal information online to obtain certain government services. But the same number said they were concerned about privacy on government Web sites.

Americans are more reluctant to submit personal information to government sites than to private sites, the survey found. Roughly 70 percent of Internet users had used credit card numbers to make online commercial purchases, but only 30 percent had completed a credit card purchase on a government site.

The poll, conducted jointly by the Council for Excellence in Government and Accenture, a consulting company, showed that e-government use remained relatively flat this year. Roughly 75 percent of Internet users in the United States have visited an e-government site, the same percentage reported in last year's survey. This is the Council for Excellence in Government's third annual poll to gauge the public's opinion of government Web sites.

While the overall number of Americans using e-government sites did not improve this year, a broader range of citizens is taking advantage of the services, according to David McClure, vice president of e-government at the Council for Excellence in Government. More minorities and low-income citizens are flocking to government sites, he said. The public used the sites most frequently to file change of address forms, respond to jury summons, renew driver's licenses and obtain birth certificates or marriage licenses.

More than two thirds of e-government users said the Web made government-related transactions easier, and 74 percent believed the sites will grow increasingly user-friendly in the next five to 10 years, compared with 70 percent in the last survey.

E-government users trusted the information posted on government sites less than they trusted the online information provided by businesses and the media. About 61 percent of respondents said they believed government Web sites are reliable, while 69 percent and 64 percent trusted business sites and news media sites, respectively. The difference is partly because the public is not as familiar with government Web outlets, according to a report on the survey results.

A lack of privacy was one of the top three reasons the public cited for steering clear of e-government sites. Respondents also said they had difficulty finding information on federal Web sites, indicating that some sites were poorly designed, while some indicated that they were not aware of the full range of services available to them.

Concern about privacy is not limited to government Web sites, McClure said. But he added that there is a "cultural stigma" attached to handing the government too much personal information. People want more efficient government services, like smart cards to help them get through airport security faster, he said, but they balk at the idea of giving up their privacy to obtain those services. Citizens reach a threshold where they draw the line between "individual freedom and the government's ability to know more about what [they're] doing," he said.

Patricia McGinnis, president and chief executive officer of the Council for Excellence in Government, said that striking a balance between privacy and effective online services is the next important challenge in e-government. The government and the technology community will have to work together to develop appropriate safeguards against hackers and build the public's trust, she said.

More than half of survey respondents said they believed it is OK for the government to search existing Web databases for information that could help track down terrorists and 54 percent believed that e-government sites would improve homeland security by helping coordinate emergency response efforts. A third of respondents felt that the sites actually threaten security because they divulge information that terrorists could find and use against Americans.