Affiliations: [a] Institute of Technology Assessment (ITA),
Austrian Academy of Sciences, Strohgasse 45/5, 1030 Vienna, Austria | City University of New York, College of Staten Island | University of Massachusetts, Amherst | Universidad Autónoma del Estado de México | University of Southern California – Information
Science Institute
Abstract: Web 2.0 in its various shades is being embraced in the domain of
e-government; sophisticated transaction services are becoming mainstream
interactions and creating new challenges, particularly regarding security and
privacy. The emerging field of electronic identity management (e-IDM) addresses
these issues, while governments are introducing e-IDM systems at national level
to support service provision. This paper conceptualizes the transition to such
a system in Austria as a "system innovation" and uses the approach of
"actor-centered institutionalism" to analyze the innovation process and its
outcome. It identifies major particularities of the Austrian system such as the
technology-neutral approach using multiple tokens and an ID-model with special
provisions for privacy protection, traces their origin in the interplay of
institutional context and actor constellations and assesses the pattern of this
transformation. The current system represents a niche innovation, indeed with a
transformation pattern implying considerable change for public administration
as well as for citizens. Still controversial privacy implications and
insufficient user value, reflected in slow take-up, remain the challenges. The
system innovation perspective proved particularly valuable in identifying
demands for adaptation by revealing barriers in the transition process towards the e-IDMS.
Keywords: Electronic identity, e-government, system innovation, privacy, Austria
