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The Austrian case: multi-card concept and the relationship between citizen ID and social security cards
Georg Aichholzer
Stefan Strau
National electronic identity (e-ID) card schemes and electronic identity management systems (e-IDMS) in Europe are characterised by considerable diversity. This contribution analyses the creation of a national e-IDMS in Austria with the aim of improving our understanding of the reasons behind the genesis of particular designs of national e-IDMS. It seeks to explain how the system's specific design evolved and which factors shaped its appearance. Being part of a comparative four country study, a common theoretical framework is employed to allow for a comparison of national e-IDMS in Austria, Belgium, Germany and Spain. It combines the approach of actor-centred institutionalism and the concept of path dependence in order to analyse the innovation process and to explain resulting key characteristics of the e-IDMS in Austria: a technology-neutral system with multiple tokens; an ID model based on the Central Register of Residents; a privacy concept using sector-specific personal identifiers. It is shown that innovation process and outcome are not only shaped by specific actor constellations dominated by strategic e-government bodies, but also by path dependence at three levels: technological, institutional and organisational.
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Along with the emerging global trend of introducing national systems for electronic
identity management (e-IDMS), many European Union states have already rolled out
electronic ID cards or are about to do so. National e-IDMS are expected to improve
secure authentication and efficiency of service provision in e-government as
proposed by EU-Commission initiatives. This is of particular importance as the
implementation of online public services is entering more advanced, transactional
stages. However, the development of e-ID card schemes at national level took place
without supra-national European coordination and led to a quite diverse landscape of
e-IDMS, e.g. regarding privacy features but also other components (ENISA 2009).
There may be valid reasons for system diversity but it is a big challenge for
achieving cross-border interoperability of e-ID schemes. Some scholars in the e-ID
field have also addressed e-ID policy beyond the coordination deficit of national
system development and postulate the need for a new regulatory framework in toto
(Lusoli et al. 2008).
This paper wants to contribute to a better understanding of the reasons behind the
genesis of particular designs of national e-IDMS. It attempts to identify major factors
of influence on technological and organisational key decisions and events in the
process of system design, development and implementation. In other words, it
explores the space between determination and choice of decisions leading to certain
system features by tracing technological and organisational choices and constraints
with due consideration of given contexts. To this end the paper analyses the
development and introduction of a national e-IDMS in Austria which was among the
first countries in Europe to implement such a system. The results of this country case
study, being part of an international cooperative research project involving similar
case studies in Belgium, Germany and Spain,1 also serve as a cross-country
comparative analysis. The interest in explaining key characteristics of the system has
been stimulated by indications of considerable country differences as regards both
the motivations and strategies to develop an e-IDMS and the resulting system
architecture.
The key research questions of this paper are as follows:
What are defining characteristics of the national e-IDMS in Austria in terms of
its technological and organisational set-up and core features with regard to basic
functions, ID model, privacy and data protection?
How can the specific design and components of the Austrian e-IDMS, in
particular its key characteristics, be explained as outcomes of an innovation
process shaped by an interplay of actor constellations, institutional context and
binding effects from past decisions (path dependence)?
A common analytical framework is employed to analyse the innovation process
and to explain resulting key characteristics of the e-IDMS at national levels which
combines an institutionalist approach known as actor-centred institutionalism (cf.
Schneider and Mayntz 1995; Scharpf 1997) and concepts of path dependence (cf.
Werle 2007; Wetzel 2005; Beyer 2005).2 While the former focuses on decisions and
1 The collaborative project Systemic Change of the Identification of Citizens by GovernmentElectronic
Identity Management in Selected European Countries is coordinated by the Institute of Information
Management Bremen (ifib) at the University of Bremen and funded by a grant from the Volkswagen
Foundation.
2 A brief explanation of these concepts is provided in the introductory chapter by Kubicek in this issue.
actor constellations in their institutional contexts, the latter allows identifying
mechanisms which c (...truncated)