Dubai ranks among top 10 digital cities in e-government privacy and security

The survey of the official city websites, conducted by Rutgers University (the State University of New Jersey), ranked Dubai in the 9th position, along with Auckland, scoring 7.86 out of 20 points, against the average score of 2.85. The survey ranked Dubai 11th worldwide in the service delivery category, ahead of Dublin, Helsinki and Tokyo, according to Dubai-based Madar Research Group, which has released the findings.

"Outranking highly developed countries is a commendable achievement for Dubai, and reflects the leading edge systems that have been adopted by Dubai eGovernment to ensure the highest levels of security and privacy," said Salem Al Shair, Director eServices, Dubai eGovernment. "This recognition is an indication that Dubai has laid the right infrastructure for e-governance and can now work towards encouraging wider use of eServices."

The security and privacy section of the survey examined the availability and quality of privacy policies, and looked at issues related to authentication, encryption, digital signature, data management and use of cookies. According to the findings, only 17 cities showed that they identified the organizations collecting data on their websites and only 14 cities identified the kind of data being collected. Dubai was one of the 12 cities whose privacy policy identified both.

In service delivery, Dubai was ranked 11th worldwide, with a score of 8.25 (out of 20) against the world average of 4.77. The report also cited Dubai as one of only 10 cities that have websites allowing citizens to pay 'fees' online.

"Service delivery is one area in which Dubai eGovernment has been making rapid strides, and this was recognized in earlier studies, including the one based on European Union standards last year," said Al Shair. "While these accolades provide satisfaction to us, the more important job is to strive harder to attain new benchmarks. Dubai is a city that is never content to sit on its laurels. We will continue to achieve better standings in the future in all respects of e-governance."

The survey which used 92 key indicators to evaluate websites under five core parameters gave weighted scoring of 20 points each, to add up to a total score of 100. Taking all parameters into account, Dubai was ranked 18th , ahead of Sydney and Jakarta. The top five cities in digital governance were Seoul, Hong Kong, Singapore, New York and Shanghai.

Dubai was the only city from the Arab world to make the top 20 list. Other Arab cities figuring in the Top 100 list were Amman, Manama, Riyadh, Cairo and Beirut, according to the Rutgers University survey.