Today, Malta is considered by its EU peers as one of the most advanced members states where it comes to the provision of e-public services. More than 70 different applications, from getting an Identity Card to obtaining a birth certificate from the public registry, are just a click away from your computer at the comfort of your home.

All this would not have been possible without the vision of the country’s IT leaders and mostly through millions of EU funds invested in Malta’s infrastructure. In 2010, with some €40 million in investment, the building blocks of an e-government public administration were put in place.

A new National Identity Management System was installed. This was accompanied by a national programme to change all the identity cards of Maltese residents, and transform the traditional document into an electronic document capable of being read in just a matter of seconds through a card reader.

With the new electronic ID card in place, a government administrator could obtain the necessary information from the national database much quicker and could start providing services even through an email.

The project also involved the design and rolling out of various electronic services by the government. Services like the payments of taxes, applications for social benefits, provision of identification documentation and payments of fines have all been made available online, making these processes much more accessible and efficient.

Another part of this massive project consisted of the electronic learning (e-learning), with the government introducing new IT infrastructure in all its school greatly facilitating the teaching experience and alleviating the learning experience to a more interactive level.

As schools all over Malta and Gozo were turned into infrastructural e-learning hubs, with robust internet connections, more computers and the installation of over 2,000 electronic interactive white boards, education was transformed to a completely new highly-interactive experience. Students started communicating with their teachers and posting their homework online, while parents started receiving their children’s assessment results electronically. In all, the eLearning project involved more than 100 schools.

Government’s vision and the availability of EU funds, together with a right and timely strategy has paid off as Malta has positioned itself as one of the leaders in this area.

www.identitymalta.com