Introduction

With the rapid development of emerging information and popularization of cloud, mobile and personalized service applications and portable mobile devices, our daily life has gradually changed to the ”always on” mode. Active network social life, use of instant messaging software or social websites, participation in public issue discussion through internet and on-line shopping have become a major part of people’s lives. In the new era of cloud, mobility, social media and big data, cloud computation has become the new computation core. People use mobile broadband, such as 4G, to connect with mobile devices, mobile Apps and social network and generate many analyzable and reusable big data, which further changes people’s lifestyle in social, economic and environmental aspects and becomes an advantageous basis for the development of digital government in the network society.    

In the face of the development and transformation of the trend of digital technology, and emergence of innovative information service mode and change of lifestyle resulting from vigorous development of social media and emergence of network society, it is a challenge for the government agencies to make good use of emerging ICT technologies, enhance public participation in public policies through open data, create new public service models and improve the government’s service quality and degree of satisfaction. Moreover, innovative information service models and changes of lifestyle also impose great challenges to the government in the aspects of governance, regulation adjustment, information security and privacy protection, and protection of information vulnerable groups. Taiwan should adopt a forward-looking attitude to create a new blueprint for the digital government in terms of establishment of regulatory system and improvement of the public’s network application.

The action plan of network social digital government aims to “protect digital human rights and develop active network society” and “promote sensible smart governance of open government.” These will become the guidelines and principles for subsequent promotion of relevant policies and public participation in public affairs in the network generation so that the government agencies can adopt original thinking of the network era and initiate the network reform internally.

Promotional Strategies

Based on the experience of the world, the government can no longer be limited to the role of digital service provider. Instead, the government should adopt the thinking of civic cooperation and rethink how to meet the public’s demand in the most cost-effective way and even surpass the public’s expectation.

In the face of the dilemma of developing digital government in Taiwan, we have to strengthen regulation adjustment, establish digital governance system, and strengthen talent cultivation and interdisciplinary cooperation. In terms of application, we have to promote cross-ministerial, cross-procedure and cross-data service integration and construct a demand-oriented one-stop smart life service that also takes into account digital human rights and protection of the fair participation of vulnerable groups. Meanwhile, we will introduce civil participation and supervision through open data and civil participation, improve the government’s service efficiency and deepen multilateral communication on public policies. Finally, integrate the government, industry and civil society based on Taiwan’s implementation experience and outcome, and bring Taiwan into line with the international community to jointly promote digital economic cooperation relationship and enhance Taiwan’s digital competitiveness and international visibility.  

• Strengthen the digital governance system and functions of relevant ministries and local governments
    The focus of this work is to strengthen the digital governance system and functions of relevant ministries and local governments, cultivate the medium-level and high-level IT talent in the government agencies, enhance the cross-unit integration function of the IT department of all level of government agencies, advance the professional capacity of IT personnel and enhance the IT literacy of general public servants, facilitate the planning of e-governance and digital government service, innovate and apply information and communication technology, strengthen the government’s administrative efficiency and business development, and connect Taiwan to the international community to further develop digital economy.
   
• Complete the relevant regulatory environment of digital government governance and information security management
    The main promotional strategies will be to promote the digital service, data governance and other relevant regulations or standards, including stipulation of common norms and guidance of government information standards, development of design standards of government digital service, guidelines for implementing information plan management, stipulation of information security management act and subsidiary ordinance thereof, establishment off legal system for digital communication and dissemination, bringing internet democratic governance spirit into full play and promotion of verification standards for incorporating de-identification of personal information into the government’s data governance to lower the concern of personal privacy derived from data application.
   
• Implement data governance of governments of all levels, and construct demand-oriented one-stop smart government service
    People expect the government’s information service to be easy and convenient, in which the government agencies can bring the rights and services entitled to the public to the public directly rather than through complex mechanism of application and review. Of course, if the government’s digital service can be customized and tailored to be free from the limitation of time, locations and devices, it will be further supported and recognized by people. Therefore, interdisciplinary integration, active provision, tailor-made and ubiquitous service are the one-stop government smart service.
  
    The international trend for promoting the government’s interdisciplinary service integration is through open standards and common platforms. Front-end and back-end information service procurement is separated (i.e., Decoupled Architecture). Through machine-readable APIs, the government can focus on the service design, and the front-end developers with various access requirements can integrate different APIs in accordance with the most appropriate application procedure and develop the service with the best user experience. In the future, the government’s business process will be used as a basis to connect digital data and develop demand-oriented one-stop smart cloud government service and create an environment with public-private cooperation, free access and combined service to implement the goal of Government as a Platform.
• Establish a cooperation mechanism between the Government and civil society to actively open government data and develop value-added application.
    The main promotional strategies are to accelerate the opening of government data, optimize the quality of government data, develop key data application and complete the data service industrial supply chain, and enhance value-added synergy of data opening and application, including establishing data quality improvement mechanism to optimize data quality and strengthen the depth of open government information, promoting industrial data platform, developing vertical industrial data and local/regional featured application through the integration of local government, industry, academia and research units to crease economic value of data, strengthening the government’s cross-domain data analysis ability, optimizing policy measures through integration of industry, government and academia, making Open APIs the default function of the government business system, facilitating the local governments to jointly promote open data and expanding the breadth of government data opening.
   
• Shorten digital gap and enhance fair digital development opportunities of all citizens
    To implement digital human rights objectives and offer fair digital development opportunities for all citizens, this plan will provide broadband internet access (100 Mbps or more) and device borrowing service in public libraries, digital opportunity centers and immigrant centers to train the public’s digital innovation ability.
  
    Through the survey on digital opportunities, we can understand the changes in the national’s fair digital development, and analyze the digital opportunity development of different groups. This plan will collect data regarding national employment, data access for learning and living, information literacy and data application situation. Through analysis on the status of digital opportunities, this plan will provide references for the government agencies to form policies to bridge digital gap, and allow rolling amendment to improve the fair digital development opportunities of all citizens.
   
• Popularize the digital construction of the remote areas and offshore islands, and promote the development of digital application of remote areas, offshore islands and small and medium-sized enterprises and micro-enterprises to protect the equal digital development opportunities for urban and rural areas and various social classes.
    The main promotional strategy is to equip diverse rural groups with the ability to use network technology tools, meet life requirement and enrich life application. Provide diverse mobile service through integration of digital care bases, and equip the public with the ability to apply information and value-added application. Integrate ministerial resources to improve the information literacy and digital application ability of women and female immigrants. Integrate and invest the resources of colleges, high schools, vocational schools and civil society in the digital care bases. Recruit and train volunteers to provide information application service in remote areas. Use online teaching, combine digital learning resources from various domains, recruit college students to accompany elementary and junior high school students in remote areas to boost the students’ learning motivation and promote equal learning opportunities. Build agile learning concept in enterprises, equip the enterprises with operation and marketing skills, and expand the business opportunities of microenterprises.
  
    Meanwhile, for the popularization of digital broadband application of SMEs, this plan expects to establish 960 smart interactive vending machines through “introduction→build→training→counseling” in four years. Build quick and go service networks with smart management interactive platform and counseling, combine local resources and government open data to comprehensively provide network business service environment to SMEs in remote areas, create local new business opportunities and prepare for the smart business era.
   
• Promote supporting measures that ensure the broadband access of disadvantageous groups
    With technological advance, no access to technology service not only means economic disadvantage but also an overall rejection of the world’s network. Therefore, technology service means equal opportunities for social participation. Access to information technology is a necessary and key criterion to avoid exclusion.
  
    To protect the disadvantageous groups, countries are promoting bills that protect the rights of disadvantageous groups to protect their equal opportunities for social participation. In addition, all kinds of information circulate in the cyber space. Therefore, to prevent children and teenagers from contacting improper information adverse to mental development, creation of safe internet environment has been one of the important goals to protect the sound mental development of children and youths in countries around the world.
   
• Use civil technology to deepen diverse communication of public policies, click-and-mortar integration and national cooperation mechanism to implement participatory democracy.
    Implement the idea of digital government, provide government network participation platform, complete the public opinion response mechanism and make the public policy formation process available to the public. Specific measures include the development of the Active Service and Network Participation Program to realize perfect form of public participation service, calling for public wisdoms in the process of policy formation at all levels of governments, guiding the setting and management of policy issues of all government agencies, promote and guide the municipal governments and city/county governments to introduce public policy network participation.
   
• Integrate the resources of government, industry and civil society to develop diverse digital technologies, digital governance and digital economic international cooperation relationships.
    Bring Taiwan’s development experience to the international community, connect the relevant industries with the international communities, enter international application markets and improve Taiwan’s international digital economic competitiveness through integrating the government resources and the energy of the industry and civil society, actively engaging in international affairs, such as APEC, TEL, ICA and WIP, participating in the formation of standards, and establishing mechanisms for digital service and information security talent and technology exchange and cooperation with countries in Europe, Asia and America.
  
    The main promotional strategies include coordination of technical capacity at home and abroad, promote open file format and strengthen the seamless convergence of domestic and international files; invite international civil society and non-for-profit organizations to jointly participate in the government’s information decision meetings; pay attention to important international digital governance meetings and strengthen the digital partnerships with other nations; promote common APIs for open data in Asia with our open data partners in Asia, and connect business opportunities of international information market.