Opinion: Digital deficits exacerbate the crisis

1.
Neither parliament nor the authorities nor many companies are in a position to operate digitally across the board. When medical practices have to deliver their Corona cases by fax to the Federal Office of Public Health FOPH, we are really lagging badly behind. Likewise, when the numbers of sick and deceased people in the cantons do not match those of the Confederation because there is no standardized, automatic flow of information between the cantons and the Confederation. Another example: In the Department of Economic Affairs of the Canton of Zurich, applications for short-time work must be be manually typedwhich leads to massive delays. (Editor's note. An electronic form is now available.)

2.
It is not possible for authorities to make contact with citizens via a secure mail address. Everyone has a residential address, but e-mails are all over the place. A standardised, secure e-mail address would open up a new, efficient communication channel. It could be based on the AHV number (e.g. AHV-Nummer@ahv.ch), which would be simple and cheap to set up. An authority, for example the Central Compensation Office ZAS, would issue and manage the mail addresses. There would still be the verification of person and address. But this would not be an insurmountable obstacle; after all, there are methods of verification such as those used by banks or online retailers.

3.
As there is still no standardised, generally accepted electronic identity card (E-ID), it remains difficult or even impossible to conclude certain contracts digitally.

Once normality returns, we need to look intensively and urgently at digitization, especially in preparation for the next possible crisis. A comprehensive digital infrastructure would bundle and accelerate information flows. Thanks to AI technology, information evaluations could be made more precise and plausible and serve as valuable decision-making aids for authorities and companies. A digital infrastructure would also facilitate the conclusion of contracts. Digital meetings would be more efficient and shorter than physical meetings, and would also help to protect the environment because there would be no need to travel to Bern or jet off to New York for every meeting.

Renato Gunc is a graduate telematics engineer and holds a degree in European and Business Law from the University of Bern. Gunc presides eGov Switzerland - Association for Innovation in E-Government. He is responsible at the PEAX AG the Sales and Business Development division. Previously, he was CEO at SIX Paynet AG and was involved in the Swiss Post Group. He was involved in e-health, e-government and the development of a Switzerland-wide digital identity (SwissID).