3. A Gender Analysis of E-Service Delivery in Malaysia

Since 1996, government agencies have been taking a number of steps to transition to online service delivery. At present, more than 56 per cent of government services are available online through various channels, such as the myGovernment portal (www.malaysia.gov.my), mobile devices, and kiosks. The myGovernment portal, designed by MAMPU, is a single window gateway (one-stop source) to information and services provided by the Government of Malaysia via the Internet. Through myGovernment, the public is linked to more than 900 government agencies and websites nationwide18 and to a range of services which address the needs of children, adults, persons with disabilities, youth, senior citizens, and Malaysians who are residing outside the country at the time of access.

According to the United Nations E-government Survey 2014, Malaysia provides more than 86.6 per cent of its e-services to disadvantaged and vulnerable groups, which include older persons, people with disabilities, women, and youth.

One of the main factors that contribute to a large number of e-services being available for poor and marginalised groups is the eKasih National Poverty Data Bank, an online database that enables mapping and monitoring of poor and hardcore poor households and individuals across the nation, and integrated and coordinated design and delivery of poverty alleviation measures. This data system developed by the Implementation and Coordination Unit (ICU) has enabled the inclusion of low-income and vulnerable households in the implementation of development programs by a range of ministries including the Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development and Ministry of Rural and Regional Development.

One instance of how this database has been used for the effective targeting of women from low-income households is 1AZAM. Introduced in 2010, the 1AZAM is a series of income-generation programs aimed at productive low-income households. Institutionally, each of the 1AZAM programs is run by a particular agency and may include collaboration with NGOs. The Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development (MWFCD) leads the coordination and implementation of all the programs, and uses the eKasih database system (National Poverty Data Bank) for determining eligible recipients (classified as extremely poor, poor, vulnerable or low-income groups). Between January 2011 to March 2014, 140,976 people participated in the 1AZAM program, of which 65 per cent are women beneficiaries. Nevertheless, the initiative has faced some challenges, which are provided below:

  • Despite the high percentage of women beneficiaries, further efforts are required to effectively targeting women. Field research conducted for this study revealed that two key informants who were representatives of two local NGOS that work with survivors of domestic violence and single mothers respectively, had no knowledge of 1AZAM (Sumitra Visvanathan, interview, 2016; Aliah Ali, interview, 2016). The two NGOs were also not on any communication alert facility that would inform them of such programs, which they could, in turn, share with their constituencies. Despite being supported by ICT platforms, government initiatives are still unable to effectively implement strategies to “reach the unreached”.
  • Targeting mechanisms have not been standardised across all social protection programs in Malaysia. For example, e-Kasih's procedures to determine the beneficiaries of targeted programs, in terms of the unit of targeting (individual, household, and nuclear family), the method of determining eligibility, and thresholds for eligibility are very different from other programs that seek to provide aid to the poorest households – e-Bantuan (e-Aid) and BR1M (Bantuan Rakyat 1Malaysia or 1Malaysia People’s Aid). This creates a lot of pressure on individual households in applying for government benefits, and also increases the risk of exclusion from the social security net.

There is no clear effort to integrate a gender-inclusive perspective in the overall design of e-services. The Ministry of Women, Family and Community Development is involved only in the digitalization of its own services, and is not consulted for any larger discussion/deliberation on how the shift to online services may affect women’s e-participation.19 In fact, most e-services, especially the flagship applications discussed above, were largely designed by policy makers and possibly the private sector partners where concerned, but with little input from those who would be directly affected by their implementation. When greater emphasis is placed on what is supplied rather than how well such a supply meets the needs of those these are meant to serve, gender considerations are often ignored.

Many crucial issues/concerns of women are not yet being addressed through existing e-services. In fact, no concrete e-service has yet been developed in the areas of tackling violence against women, and general safety services that can alert/notify women and girls of reportedly dangerous areas and other safety issues. It was only recently in January 2016, that a discussion has been initiated on setting up a child abusers and sex offenders registry. It is still unclear about how a balance will be struck in this initiative between privacy rights of offenders and the public interest of protecting children (Sumitra Visvanathan, interview, 2016)

There are also instances of gender-neutral design adversely impacting women and transgender people whose human rights are elaborated upon in General Recommendation Nos. 27 and 28 of CEDAW. As explained in Box 1, this has been the case with the Multipurpose Smartcard/ MyKad, which has become the backbone in the digitalization of Malaysian citizens’ identities.

Box 1:
Multipurpose Smartcard—The MyKad

In 2000, the government aimed to create a seamless system for service delivery, which required the establishment of an interconnected network between public sector agencies for effective interaction, coordination, and information-sharing. This was implemented through cross-cutting policies and programs under the No Wrong Door Policy, and the use of a single reference number in dealings between individuals and government agencies through the national birth registration. This was the MyID initiative, which uses the National Registration Identity Card (Kad Pengenalan Malaysia) number as the sole reference for individual Malaysians in their transactions with government agencies. The Kad Pengenalan Malaysia, commonly known as MyKad (Malaysia Kad Akuan Diri or sometimes also referred to as Malaysia Kad Aplikasi Digital) is the compulsory identity document for Malaysian citizens aged 12 and above.20 Introduced by the National Registration Department of Malaysia on 5 September 2001 as one of seven Multimedia Super Corridor (MSC) Malaysia flagship applications and a replacement for the former High Quality Identity Card (Kad Pengenalan Bermutu Tinggi), Malaysia became the first country in the world to use an identification card incorporating both photo identification and fingerprint biometric data on an in-built computer chip embedded onto a plastic card. The main purpose of the card is to provide a validation tool and proof of citizenship other than the birth certificate. In addition, MyKad may also serve as a valid driver's license, an automatic teller machine (ATM) card, an electronic purse,21 and a public key,22 among other applications, as part of the Malaysian Government Multipurpose Card initiative if the bearer chooses to activate these functions.

The MyKad has attracted many private applications to-date—as many as 30 applications that facilitate government services, border control, electronic payments, user authentication, loyalty programs, education, and mobile applications as of 2009 (Hisan 2009), but uptake of public applications, for example, driver‘s license, has been minimal. Some factors accounting for its low uptake include access to infrastructure (for example, card readers), lack of buy-in from other agencies, and poor public perception of security limits public usage of other applications on the MyKad. There has been some social impact through reduction of fraud and minimisation of paperwork (NITC 2015). The participation of multiple agencies such as the National Registration Department (NRD), MAMPU, Pos Malaysia, and the National IT Council (NITC) is required to ensure that the MyKad application achieves full potential.

The MyKad adopts a 12-digit numbering system23 with odd numbers at the end of the last of the four digits representing biological males and even numbers representing biological females. While this may facilitate the collection and disaggregation of statistics by biological sex, it has often affected the wellbeing of transgender people as they continue to face stigma and discrimination in obtaining official acknowledgment of their gender dysphoria (Human Rights Watch 2015). In addition, as religious affiliation is indicated on the MyKad, this can compromise the privacy of transgender persons. The former system of randomised numbers for identification cards could help reduce the stigma and discrimination targeted at transgender people since biological sex was not stated on the card but only encoded in the electronic chip.

Another issue with the MyKad is the unreliability of biometric authentication systems – specifically fingerprint based authentication. With older people, the skin becomes too dry and cracked especially for women who are often the ones who do the washing of clothes, dishes, and so on, making recognition of the thumb print difficult. While some government authorities are aware of this issue, other service providers are not necessarily as sensitised. Banks, for example, may ask for other types of identification such as the driver’s license or the Malaysian passport to verify a person’s identity, documents which not everyone possess.

Sources: See NITC (2015), http://nitc.kkmm.gov.my/index.php/key-ict-initiatives/msc-flagship-applications; Human Rights Watch (2015), https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/10/08/malaysia-court-ruling-sets-back-transgender-rights

Another instance of gender-blind design is evidenced by the Malaysian Youth Development Research Institute's GIS-based portal that was launched in 2013, with the intention of helping organizations effectively plan and implement their youth development programs. The portal (http://petabelia.kbs.gov.my/) provides users with access to 49 types of interactive maps based on the following categories: number of youth associations, number of sports centres, involvement of youth in society clubs, engagement of youth in anti-social behaviour, economic well-being, overall health, and other social and psychological indicators.24 The purpose of the portal was to create a catalyst to influence policy and human resource development in the country and increase the provision of funds allocated to youth development by presenting the data to policymakers.25 But the data on the interactive maps are not sex-disaggregated (see for example the interactive map for youths aged 15 to 24 years old at http://petabelia.kbs.gov.my/petabeliav2/framesetup.asp).26

Demand-side data on gender-differentiated patterns in access and use of e-services are not collected. The lack of sex-disaggregated data on citizen uptake of e-services is a cause for concern as access to Internet and online services is a deeply gendered experience, with affordability barriers hindering many women from going online.

Interviews with informants from key NGOs working on women's rights indicate that sufficient attention is not being paid by government agencies to raise awareness among women and marginalised groups of existing e-services. As one key informant observed:

“Generally, when it comes to services available to women from the government, whether it is federal government or state government, it’s always a situation where we find out about services and facilities and programs etcetera, by the way. Somehow we find out about it. The distribution [of information on these services] and the [public] awareness is very poor” (Sumitra Visvanathan, interview, 2016).

Another factor that hinders progress in online service delivery is resistance among governmental staff to digitalisation (Hazman and Maniam 2006; West 2004; cited in Wan Abdullah, Mansor and Hamzah 2013: 562). Some staff have negative perceptions about IT, viewing its use as an additional job responsibility. Even though the government has spent a lot of money purchasing and upgrading IT-related infrastructure under the National IT Policy of 2005, the acceptance and use of these services is often limited to e-mails, Internet, and intranet, and has not necessarily extended to active support for online participation or online services.

A further challenge is the non-transparency of the emerging digitalised service delivery systems, in part due to the lack of a Freedom of Information Act. Access to data contained on such systems controlled by the user’s identification card number (MyIdentity), and a limited amount of related data, is allowed. Other types of information are not accessible. For example, if women’s human rights defenders want to check the status of child alimony cases in the Syariah courts, requests for data have to be submitted either to the Department of Statistics which will then charge search fees accordingly. Requests sent directly to the e-Syariah portal are not likely to be entertained as data from this portal is accessible only to state Syariah prosecutors.

While there is a move by the Malaysian government to push for Ministries and agencies towards the sharing of their data through the Open Data Malaysia initiative (data.gov.my; Suhazimah Dzazali and Norhamimah Ibrahim, interview, 2016), it is unclear if this initiative will succeed in enhancing transparency in governance and bring forth a culture where people's right to information is upheld. Most government portals do have links to privacy and security policies as well as some which highlight the client’s charter. However, assurances of privacy and protection of data are also compromised by the little knowledge shared with users as to how they can identify privacy violations and to whom they can report it. Such information would be very useful and have gendered impacts on women and girls.

 

  1. myGovernment is an initiative undertaken by MAMPU.
  2. Interviews with MAMPU and Ministry of Health staff.
  3. Similar identification cards are issued as well for children (MyKid), the police (MyPolis), the army (MyTentera) and Permanent Residents of Malaysia (MyPR).
  4. An electronic wallet system intended for low-value, high-volume transactions.
  5. Allows for the purchase of digital certificates for more secure Internet banking, online submission of tax returns, and e-mail.
  6. The first six digits record the date of birth of the person and the next two digits denote their place of birth (usually by state, or if born outside of Malaysia, by region). Stateless persons are denoted by 98, and those who do not know the state they were born in or have no birth records but have Malaysian citizenship records, would be denoted with 82.
  7. See http://petabelia.kbs.gov.my/home.asp?en=list-map for more information.
  8. For more information, see http://petabelia.kbs.gov.my/.
  9. See http://petabelia.kbs.gov.my/home.asp?en=reports.