E-government is a new public administration model resulting from the promotion and application of modern information technology in public administration. It is the main aspect of contemporary government management innovation. In recent years, with the accelerated pace of global informatization, my country's e-government applications have continued to deepen, and problems in its legislation have become increasingly prominent, which to a certain extent has hindered the rapid development of my country's e-government. Therefore, it is necessary to strengthen the research on my country's e-government legislation issues, carefully analyze the current situation of my country's e-government legislation, systematically summarize its main problems, and propose effective countermeasures, which will contribute to promoting the sustainable and healthy development of my country's e-government and promoting the level of informatization in our country. Rapid improvement has important practical significance.
1. Current status of my country’s e-government legislation
From a global perspective, major developed countries have successively promulgated a series of laws and regulations aimed at promoting the development of e-government in their countries. For example, the "Electronic Communications Act" passed by the United Kingdom in May 2001 established the legal status of digital signatures; Singapore formulated the "Information Security Guidelines" and "Electronic Authentication Security Guidelines" to provide a legal basis for the development of its e-government affairs; The United States has now formed a relatively complete e-government legal system with the Electronic Government Act as the core.
Compared with developed countries, the development of e-government in my country started relatively late, and its corresponding legislation is still in the exploratory development stage. Some laws and regulations related to regulating the development of e-government have been promulgated.
According to the relationship between these laws and regulations and the development and construction of e-government affairs, they can be summarized into four categories:
(1) Computer law, mainly legal norms related to the security and confidentiality of computer systems and Computer software protection laws, such as the "Computer System Security Protection Regulations", "Computer Software Protection Regulations", etc.
(2) Internet Law mainly stipulates matters such as access, security, facilities, operations and competent authorities of the international Internet, such as "Regulations on Maintaining Internet Security", "Internet Service Management" Measures", "Interim Provisions on Internet Domain Name Registration in China", etc.
(3) Information law, mainly laws and regulations related to government informatization, such as the "Beijing Municipal Affairs and Public Service Informatization Project Construction Management Regulations" and so on.
(4) Government Affairs Disclosure Law mainly covers the disclosure of relevant government business processes and policy formulation, implementation and results, such as the "Government Information Disclosure Regulations (Draft)", "Administrative Licensing Law", "Government Procurement Information Announcement Management Measures", etc.
Generally speaking, my country's e-government legislation is still in the three-no state of "no programmatic legislation, no definite legislative rules, and no effective legislative evaluation and supervision mechanism" [2]. The existing laws and regulations are The level of legal effectiveness is low, and regulations account for the majority. So far, our country has not promulgated programmatic legislation and clear legislative rules on e-government, let alone evaluation and supervision mechanisms.
2. Problems in my country’s e-government legislation
As my country’s e-government application accelerates, problems in its legislation have become increasingly prominent, which is increasingly detrimental to the development of e-government. Develop in depth.
2.1 Problems with the legislative model
In foreign countries, e-government legislation has a combination of unified legislation and separate laws and a decentralized model. The United States belongs to the former. In December 2002, the United States passed the "Electronic Government Act" and matched it with other separate laws, such as the "Government Paper Elimination Act" and so on. Our country belongs to the latter. Laws and regulations related to e-government are scattered in separate laws such as computer law, information law, and Internet law. The flaw of decentralized legislation is that its legal environment is complex to apply. In particular, my country's specific social environment makes the shortcomings of decentralized legislation more prominent, because in our country most of them are departmental legislation, with low legal status, lack of unified principles and standards, and serious conflicts, resulting in The characteristics of e-government are not obvious and the implementation effect is poor.
2.2 E-Government Standards Legislation Urgently Needs Improvement
Although my country has formulated the "E-Government Standards", it is only a standard framework with poor operability and testability. The construction of municipal e-government affairs is still in a state of fragmentation. The reasons are that on the one hand, the starting time and development stage of informatization of governments at all levels in our country are different, and the development levels are also uneven; on the other hand, our country lacks legislation on e-government construction standards, and in practice uses different technical standards and transmission protocol.
This makes it difficult to interconnect and interoperate, and information cannot be shared effectively, forming an "information island" phenomenon, resulting in poor inter-departmental collaboration and poor security and reliability, and is not conducive to the government's improvement of management methods and administrative efficiency.
2.3 Problems with government information disclosure legislation
From the legislative process of the United States, in the process of its e-government development, it has successively formulated the "Government Under the Sun Act" and "Freedom of Information Act" Law", "Government Information Disclosure Law", etc., striving to create a "government under the sun." However, our country has not yet promulgated a government information disclosure law. As early as 1988, it passed the "Law of the People's Republic of China on the Protection of State Secrets" based on the principle that "any matter not announced to the public is presumed to be confidential." This is far from the case. It is far from meeting the requirements of government affairs disclosure under e-government conditions. During the implementation of e-government, there is a huge gap between the society's demand for government information and the supply of government information. The government controls more than 80% of the information. There is a lot of information that should be made public, both in theory and in terms of actual interest balances, but cannot be made public. public[3]. Government information disclosure has not become a system, which makes it difficult to obtain government information, violates citizens' right to know, wastes information resources, and easily breeds corruption.
2.4 Problems with legislation to protect citizens’ privacy rights
In the e-government environment, when the government collects, stores and uses information, it is easy to infringe on citizens’ personal interests. Government affairs disclosure requires government departments to disclose to the public the information they collect, store and analyze to protect citizens' right to know. This will lead to the disclosure of a large amount of personal information and easily infringe on citizens' privacy rights. This is a unique issue in the protection of citizens’ privacy rights in the development of e-government. However, my country’s current laws have no clear regulations on what personal privacy is and how to protect it. Therefore, how to strengthen the protection of citizens' privacy rights has become an issue that cannot be ignored in e-government legislation.
2.5 Lagging legislation restricts the development of e-government
The lagging legislation of e-government restricts its healthy development to a certain extent. This is mainly reflected in the fact that many matters that urgently need legal regulation do not have corresponding laws. Standards; many of the specific provisions in existing legal norms do not meet the needs of e-government development, and some conflict with the development of e-government. For example, our country's laws have not made clear the legal status of e-government, which is related to the fundamental nature of e-government. regulations; there are basically no unified legal provisions on the sources, budgets, use and supervision of e-government construction funds; laws involving government information resource management, government information disclosure and intellectual property protection need to be revised and improved; relevant network There are almost no cyber laws and regulations in terms of security, government information authentication, encryption, and the public’s right to know.
2.6 Information security legislation needs to be strengthened
E-government affairs directly involve the core government affairs of governments at all levels, and are related to the interests of party and government departments and even the entire country. Therefore, ensuring the security of government affairs information has become an important issue for all countries. issues of general concern to the government. Some countries with advanced e-government have successively formulated special laws and regulations on e-government security, such as the British "Official Information Protection Act" and so on. Although our country has promulgated some laws and regulations related to network information security, e-government has developed rapidly under the catalysis of information technology and has continuously put forward higher standards for the security of information content. However, special regulations to ensure the security of e-government have not yet been formulated, resulting in Existing laws and regulations are difficult to meet the needs of e-government development. Especially in recent years, with the continuous advancement of my country's e-government construction, the opportunities for government information to be exposed and leaked are increasing, and the government's network security risks are also worrying. The main manifestations are: on the one hand, the concealment and uncertainty of network access are vulnerable to Virus infections and "hacker" attacks; on the other hand, vicious incidents such as intentional sabotage by insiders, handling of official documents beyond their authority, and theft of state secrets occur frequently [4]. These hidden dangers may damage the image of the country and the government, and also pose a threat to national security. Therefore, ensuring information security has become an urgent problem to be solved in my country's e-government legislation.
3. Countermeasures to speed up the pace of my country’s e-government legislation
A sound e-government legal system is an important guarantee for the standardized and orderly development of e-government. In order to promote the healthy development of e-government in our country, we must establish the concept of "legislation first" and gradually establish a legal system related to e-government by formulating new laws and regulations and revising existing relevant laws, thereby promoting the standardization and healthy development of e-government in our country. [5].
3.1 Accelerate the formulation of the E-Government Basic Law
The E-Government Basic Law is the basis for building the e-Government legal system. It is not only the basis for formulating lower laws and regulations, but also rationalizing the e-Government legal system. The premise of internal hierarchical relationships. Many countries have formulated e-government basic laws to govern, guide and coordinate individual e-government laws and regulations. Therefore, in order to eliminate the shortcomings of the decentralized legislative model, our country should learn from the experience of other countries, choose a model that combines unified legislation and separate laws for future e-government legislation, and formulate the "E-Government Law" as soon as possible to ensure the rapid development of our country's e-government.
3.2 Establish and improve the e-government legal system
The construction of the e-government legal system is essentially to provide a fair, transparent and harmonious environment for e-government. Our country must carry out comprehensive legislation and build a complete e-government legal system on the basis of taking into account national conditions and learning from the experience of other countries. This system has overlapping relationships with computer law, Internet law and information law, but it is not a simple patchwork and superposition, but an independent system with its own internal laws. In addition to the E-Government Law, it also includes the E-Government Law. Law", "E-Government Technology Law", "E-Government Fund Law", "E-Government Administration Law" and "E-Government Supervision Law", etc.[6] In addition, it should also include legal norms used to regulate the e-government practices of some important administrative departments, such as the Electronic Taxation Law, the Electronic Police Law and the Electronic Customs Law.
3.3 Expand the degree of government information disclosure and promulgate the "Government Information Disclosure Law" as soon as possible
Government information disclosure is a symbol of establishing a law-based government and a necessary condition for the in-depth development of e-government affairs. Drawing on foreign experience, government information disclosure must be uniformly regulated by law. In view of the current situation in our country, we should follow the principles of timeliness, authenticity, fairness and convenience, clarify the content, methods, scope and procedures of government information disclosure, and promulgate the "Government Information Disclosure Law" as soon as possible. In addition to being published on government websites, government information should also be released in a timely manner through the media, government information bulletin boards, public electronic screens, press conferences, and public service hotlines to promote the legalization of government information disclosure.
3.4 Strengthen legislation to protect citizens’ basic rights
Protecting citizens’ basic rights is a basic principle of administration according to law. Citizens’ rights to information and privacy should be protected in e-government. Citizens’ information rights include information property rights, information freedom rights, information autonomy, information equality rights and information relief rights, etc. Among them, the information equality rights are particularly concerned by society, which is the “information gap”, which mainly refers to the lack of telecommunications infrastructure in poor areas. The gap in information rights between different regions and classes caused by obtaining information through computer networks and receiving advanced education [7]. Drawing on foreign experience, the government can promote the construction of telecommunications facilities and talent training through transfer payments and payment requests to realize citizens’ right to information equality. In addition, legislation to protect citizens’ privacy rights is also a top priority. In practice, in addition to adopting technology and encryption, legislation should also be used to strengthen the protection of citizens' privacy rights, clarify the government's confidentiality responsibilities in collecting, storing and transmitting data, and ensure that citizens' basic rights are not infringed.
3.5 Strengthen the legislation on e-government standards
From the experience of foreign legislation, in order to promote the development of government informatization and e-government, the key is to do a good job in overall planning and formulate unified standards. In view of the current development status of e-government in my country, on the one hand, on the basis of the "E-Government Standards", we follow the principle of "emergency first, mature first, scientific and advanced, and practical" [7], and take an overall view and actively absorb various social forces. Promote the revision and improvement of e-government standards; on the other hand, in the construction of e-government, scientific planning must be carried out, and all technologies, standards, protocols and interfaces must comply with relevant standards to ensure the standardization, openness, security and practicality of the network, so that my country's information resources can be fully utilized.
3.6 Revise laws and regulations that conflict with the development of e-government and improve other relevant laws and regulations
The essence of e-government lies in institutional innovation, which means the content, methods and procedures of government work All will face changes, and to cope with these changes it is not enough for the government to rely on its own efforts alone; it must also rely on the law. During the implementation of e-government, laws and regulations should be adjusted with the development of e-government. Laws that are not suitable for actual needs should be abolished, modified, merged and supplemented to meet the needs of the development of e-government.
For example, the "Criminal Law" not only needs to include various possible behaviors that endanger the security of e-government systems into the scope of adjustment of the criminal law, but also stipulates corresponding specific penalties. At the same time, the "Contract Law", "Evidence Law", etc. all need to varying degrees. modification. In addition, in order to promote the healthy development of e-government, new legislation is needed, especially laws and regulations related to information and information technology applications, such as legislation on simplifying administrative management processes and regulating inter-governmental document transmission.
3.7 Legislation that attaches great importance to information security and improves the security level of e-government
Security is the life of e-government, and information security has become a key issue in the current process of e-government informatization. The top priority in government affairs construction. The disclosure of government information may have an impact on its security. To ensure its security, it is not enough to rely on technology alone. Legislation is also needed to solve the problem. When legislating on information security, the policy of "active defense and comprehensive prevention" should be implemented, the security standards, specific rules of e-government and disciplinary measures for violators should be clarified, and the operational standards for government information network security protection should be formulated. Unify the regulations, focus on improving the construction of information security regulations for government departments from the institutional level, and formulate special laws and regulations for the data security and confidential information screening systems and information authentication of different government departments to comprehensively improve the protection capabilities of information security. Thus, a good institutional barrier can be constructed to protect national information security and social public interests.