Access and Availability For All
Patrik Fältström, advisor to the Swedish Government
The public relies on government organisations for a huge range of information and services on everything from healthcare and education to taxes and employment. The majority of this information is now available online, enabling local and national governments to meet the public’s needs more efficiently.
It’s crucial for any government organisation that the services it provides can be accessed by everyone. It won’t be long before most governments will have swapped paper based processes to online forms and services, and, for example, filing taxes via a website becomes the norm. When this day comes, it’s paramount that government web services are compatible with IPv6 to accommodate those members of the public who will have adopted the new Internet addressing protocol.
If government organisations fail to make their services accessible via IPv6, many members of the public may be unable to access vital public services as their computer won’t be able to connect with the government’s IPv4-only network.
To ensure the continuing availability of critical online resources amidst the imminent depletion of IPv4 addresses, the European Commission set in May 2008 a target of 2010 for enabling 25 per cent of the public to connect to the Internet over IPv6.
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