Society

The key to Denmark's digital success

Denmark leads the way when it comes to the digitisation of the public sector. One single, secure digital key makes it easy to reach both private companies and the public sector online. The key to the digital success is: Trust.

Denmark is one of the highest ranking countries in the world when it comes to the digitisation of the public sector.

With one single digital key you can securely access more than a hundred different public services, and, on top of that, various private services. This makes it easy for citizens to do anything from signing up their children for kindergarten to paying their bills via private banking.

This is also one of the reasons why Denmark has been named the most digitalised country in the world by the European Commission, who have authored the ‘International Digital Economy and Society Index 2020’. Furthermore, the UN’s ‘e-Government Survey 2018’ also put Denmark at the very top of the digital list. Of the 193 member countries, no country performs better than Denmark when it comes to public digitisation.

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Every Danish citizen has a secure digital key called ‘NemID’ or in English, ‘Easy-ID’. NemID is one key for all of digital Denmark. It can be used to access platforms across the public and private sector

According to Rikke Hougaard Zeberg, Director of the Agency for Digitisation, this is largely owed to the tech-savvy Danish citizens and a visionary government.

”The Danish government has taken some bold decisions about how we should communicate between public sector, the citizens and businesses,” Rikke Hougaard Zeberg says.

One digital key

One of the basic digital infrastructures in Denmark is the digital key ‘NemID’, or in English ‘EasyID’, which makes it simple for the citizens to access a wide range of services online.

”It is the secure key to the digital Denmark, and what is amazing about it is that it works across the public and private sector,” Rikke Hougaard Zeberg explains.

The digital key in itself and the cooperation between the public and the private sector is an important factor when exploring how Denmark has managed to become one of the most digitalised countries in the world. But the key to success lies elsewhere – the key is the trust between citizens and government, she claims.

”In Denmark, the public sector plays a very important role in all citizens’ lives and we have a great deal of openness and a lot of interaction with the public sector,” she says, adding:

”That’s why we also have a high degree of trust in the public sector and that trust is one of the fundamental things when it comes to digitisation and the digital services that the public authorities present to the citizens.”

The digital Denmark

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Trust in the society

Chief Physician at the national hospital, Rigshospitalet, Torsten Lauritzen, agrees. As a physician he experiences from a professional perspective how citizens and the Danish healthcare sector communicates online using the NemID digital key. Often confidential and essential information is exchanged between patients and physicians, and this would not be possible without having confidence in the system and the people surrounding it, Torsten Lauritzen believes.

”In Denmark, we have huge trust in our system. We trust that the hospitals and the general practitioners don't misuse the healthcare data that we obtain from our patients. The patients trust that we gather these data for the benefit of their health, for prevention of disease or treatment of disease,” he states.

And Danes do indeed have a high degree of trust in the healthcare sector, but also in other sectors and in each other. General trust is simply a part of the culture and in the OECD’s report ‘How’s Life 2015’ Denmark takes first place when it comes to trust in other people.