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M-Communication is possibly the most important aspect of m-Government within the
four delivery segments that enhances communication. Communication facilitates the
pushing and pulling of information before any other activities could take place. Citizens
can make better decisions and encourage transparency and accountability only if they
can have sufficient information. Using mobile devices makes it easy for government to
reach out to citizens. There are a wide range of issues that government can notify
citizens using a mobile phone. For example, alerting citizens of passport renewal, court
sitting/hearing, medical examinations results, security threats, and parliamentary notice.
These have already been implemented and used in countries such as Singapore, Malta
and the United Kingdom (UK) Lallana (2008).
M-Transactions and m-Payments involve mobile application that can be used for
making transactions and payments. Citizens interact with government service delivery
using such application. As an example in Finland commuters send SMS ticket to pay for
public transport. In addition, in Norway taxpayers can send special code and personal
details to government via SMS once the return tax received by post is correct. Such a
service has benefited over 1.5 million Norwegians in such a way that the form need not
be return by mails (Lallana, 2008). In section 2.5 few examples are listed.
M-Democracy consider the use of SMS by citizens to participate in the democratic
process of a country. There has been great concern over security and privacy, therefore
m-Services has not been used widely yet. The use of m-Democracy is believed to
increase if the associated application improves its security. Voters in Liverpool and
Sheffield in 2002 elections have the ability to cast their votes via SMS if they are
provided with personal identity numbers (PINs) (Lallana, 2008).
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