Digital Iceland
Iceland in fourth place in digital public services survey
10th October 2023
Iceland ranks fourth in the annual survey of digital public services (eGovernment Benchmark) by the European Union, but in recent years Iceland has risen rapidly up the list.
Iceland was 11th in the 2020 survey, 7th in 2021, and 4th last year and this year.
The top three places are Malta, Estonia, and Luxembourg, followed by Iceland, Finland, the Netherlands, Lithuania and Denmark. The survey is detailed and involved 35 European countries. The action is based, for example, on user experience, but the European Union has set the goal of improving user experience and digital public services. The survey grades (eGovernment Benchmark) are based on four main categories - user-driven services, transparency, core services, and cross-border services.
The result shows that Iceland is well above the average in three out of four categories. Iceland ranks sixth in user-friendly digital services. Iceland is the second highest country for transparency in digital services, which means that users are well-informed about what needs to be done to access or use services. Iceland ranks second in core public services and ninth in digital cross-border services.
Iceland is also a leading nation in eID and among the many European countries where electronic certificates can be used in over 90% of cases where digital public services are accessed. The use of electronic certificates is widespread in Iceland and around 95% of Icelanders have attained the age of 13 with electronic certificates.
Bjarni Benediktsson, Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs
It is extremely gratifying to see that our efforts to invest in digital infrastructure, focusing on services to the people of this country, continue to bear fruit. Iceland has made good progress in recent years in improving digital services and is now ranked first among the leading nations of Europe. We are on course to continue our efforts and want to do even better in the years to come."
More detailed evaluation of the four main categories measured in the survey:
User-centered services
Here it is assessed whether the service is digital, or mobile and how good the support is on those platforms.
Transparency
Here it is assessed whether the digital service processes are transparent and whether the user is involved in the process and has a good overview.
Core services.
Here the availability of the basic systems and services of the public sector is assessed. An example of such a service is the digital mailbox on Ísland.is.
Cross-border services
This study evaluates how digital services benefit users in other countries. Among other things, whether information on services can be accessed in a language other than Icelandic and whether electronic identification can be used across borders, is one of the key issues among European Union nations.