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P1The progressive transfer of public services, tax filing, licence renewals, healthcare appointments, benefit applications, from physical offices to online platforms is a trend that has accelerated sharply in recent years. I consider this development broadly positive, provided that the transition is managed with genuine attention to those who cannot easily participate.

P2The advantages of digital government are substantial and well-documented. Online platforms allow citizens to access services at any hour, eliminating the need to take time away from employment, and they reduce the administrative overhead of maintaining physical infrastructure. The processing of applications becomes faster, error rates from manual transcription fall, and governments gain access to better-integrated data that can improve policy analysis and fraud detection. Countries with well-developed digital public services, such as Estonia, illustrate how online access can make administrative processes more convenient for citizens.

P3The risk that accompanies this shift is equally clear. Access to online services presupposes reliable internet connectivity, digital literacy and the possession of compatible devices, conditions that are far from universal. Elderly citizens, those with certain disabilities and people in rural or economically deprived areas are disproportionately likely to find themselves excluded from platforms nominally serving the public. If physical alternatives are simultaneously withdrawn, the most vulnerable citizens lose access to services they are often most dependent upon, transforming a modernisation agenda into a mechanism of administrative exclusion.