This is the implication of research into the impact of online school admissions systems, which warns there's a risk that only the parents who are already comfortable with the internet are likely to use them. Add to this separate research which suggests that parents lacking internet skills can damage their children's education and job prospects - and you can see a grim future developing for a large chunk of the population.
The last thing we need is a two-tier society where those with digital know-how can grab all the best services while the less well-informed - and their kids - miss out.
There's a broader lesson here for the government as it pushes ahead with getting services online.
While the number of online households continues to grow, there will always be a sizeable minority that will not embrace the internet.
And many of them are precisely the people that need to interact with the government - the poor and the elderly.
This is why electronic services are only one piece of the jigsaw - and should complement, not replace, existing channels.
Electronic services have the potential to create new channels of communication with the public - and cut out lots of unnecessary costs by consolidating back-end systems and lowering transaction costs.
But not all costs are unnecessary. And online cannot be the only access method.
E-government should free up funds which should be reinvested in better attempts to reach those people the internet cannot.
More effort could be put into providing training or low-cost PCs for people who are missing out on the internet experience, for instance, and thus narrow the digital divide.
And e-government should not be used as an excuse to cut back on other forms of service delivery.
After all, just because state pensions are now delivered to bank accounts doesn't mean we can do without the little village sub-post office which might give some elderly people one of their few contacts with the outside world.
Used well technology can help with social inclusion - but used thoughtlessly it has the power to make things worse.
Autor: Steve Ranger
Quelle: Silicon, 09.05.2005
