E-Government in Global Health Crisis: Comparing the E-Performance of COVID-19 Contact Tracing Websites

Abstract

E-government is widely acknowledged for its benefits to governments and citizens. However, its effectiveness during crises remains underexplored. During the COVID-19 pandemic, contact tracing websites were deployed globally to kerb the virus's spread, raising significant controversies about data privacy and security. This study evaluates the performance of e-government contact tracing websites across 57 countries/regions. Six e-government dimensions are examined, including (1) transparency, (2) accountability, (3) data security, (4) accessibility, (5) e-participation and (6) privacy, in a tailor-made questionnaire. The findings show that the overall performance of e-government is fair. Countries/regions mostly performed satisfactorily in providing transparency and promising accountability, data security and privacy. However, the commitments of accessibility and e-participation are evidently weak. The analysis reveals that regime type significantly influences e-government performance: democratic regimes generally perform better than autocratic ones across most dimensions, except accessibility and e-participation. The study concludes that higher levels of democracy enhance e-government performance as demonstrated by evaluations of contact tracing websites. This research provides an original comparative analysis that evaluates: (1) e-government performance through contact tracing websites, (2) the performance across various countries/regions, and (3) the factors that facilitate e-government. The contribution is to demonstrate that democracy consistently serves as a key factor in strengthening e-health management and safeguarding data protection for citizens during global health crises.