[jkaplowitz]

Belgium also uses decent crypto, software, and hardware for their electronic identity system:

https://eid.belgium.be/en/what-eid

For the last several decades, many of us Americans have become too skeptical about what government can do in terms of technology, even while it's completely true that government often gets it wrong.

[plankers]

That skepticism may have something to do with many of us Americans watching our government spectacularly fail to keep pace with changing technology over the past few decades. Not sure there's any real solution for a nation of federated states who don't like to coordinate with one another. Please prove me wrong, politicians.

[jkaplowitz]

It's definitely tricky, not disagreeing there. But Belgium is also a federation of multiple language regions who don't like to coordinate with each other. Way smaller and way fewer regions, sure, but equally with more hostilities between them.

There are very few government officials worldwide who truly know technology or how to effectively engage the real experts in an agile way rather than just government contractors. That seems to be the main problem to me.

Even in the US, the US Digital Service and 18F have done great work. And Canada has at least one backbencher MP who's a Linux and free software geek, asking legitimately knowledgeable questions in committees on topics like IPv6, copyright, and plenty of unrelated topics too.

Of course I realize those organizations and people are exceptions. But they, and the Belgian and Estonian examples, indicate what can be.

Maybe we can figure out how better to make technologists interested in serving in government, or working closely with it from the outside.

[plankers]

I'm paraphrasing from this article in the New Yorker [1] that I read some months ago, but it seems the trick to getting bona fide technologists to work in government is to offer competitive pay and benefits, as well as making the job "sexy" by offering a chance to work on a truly revolutionary project that will make life better for your countrymen. That's what's working in Estonia, at least.

I'm holding out some hope that Estonia will be able convince their fellow EU member states to pick their game up now that they have the rotating presidency of the EU council [2].

But one thing Estonia has going for it (or working against it, depending on perspective) is its close proximity to a technologically advanced hostile nation. Estonia's rapid progress has been spurred in large part by the necessity of protecting itself from Russian cyberattacks, a Big Issue if I'm remembering the New Yorker article correctly.

[1] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/12/18/estonia-the-di...

[2] https://www.visitestonia.com/en/why-estonia/estonia-is-takin...

[odbol]

Maybe it has something to do with all our politicians being older than my parents... who can barely figure out email.