Current Status of e-Government Services in Tanzania: A Security Perspective

Abstract

E-Government services improve efficiency in the delivery of government services, strengthen citizen participation, build trust in government, and yield cost savings for citizens, businesses and the government itself. However, the use of e-Government services depends on the citizens’ trust towards security of these services. This paper assesses the current status of security in e-Government services in Tanzania. The practices which influence the security of e-Government services were identified. The collected data on security practices collected from five Tanzanian public organizations using questionnaires was processed and analyzed using the SPSS. The results indicate that e-Government services are not fully secured because the majority of organizations protect their ICT assets by implementing only technical security controls rather than complementing them with non technical security controls. We conclude that more efforts are needed to secure e-Government services by applying the activities proposed in this paper.