State services transition to digital era
An app for creating, storing and authenticating digital copies of identity cards and driving licenses on mobile phones via Gov.gr Wallet was presented on Wednesday as part of an ongoing effort to digitize state services.
The presentation of the phone app was made by the responsible ministers of state and digital governance, infrastructure and transport, and citizens’ protection, Kyriakos Pierrakakis, Kostas A. Karamanlis, Takis Theodorikakos respectively.
Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis hailed the Greek state’s transition to the new digital era as an important change in the life of citizens and “a collective gain for the state machine,” describing it as one of the greatest achievements of his three-year administration.
“I had in my mind that I could do a lot of things in e-government in order to simplify state-citizen communication,” he said, adding that “back then the ministry was digital governance in name only.”
Mitsotakis said the state is moving forward with targeted actions “as technology allows us to do so,” noting that a lot of work has been done out of the public spotlight “in order to reach this level of interoperability.”
Setting the bar high for the future, he said that “there are too many aspects of government operations that need to be simplified,” so “we built the Ministry of Digital Governance along these lines.”
He added there is a lot of work to be done in the coming months and that resources of the Recovery Fund will play a key part in this digital transformation.
“In the first three years of our administration we have done a lot and we have even more to do as the bar of citizens’ expectations is rising and therefore we must not disappoint them. We must work to deliver better-quality services to citizens,” he stressed, noting that “this digital transformation is not superficial modernism, but modernization that is people-centered,” which he said leads to a more just society.
