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52% of People Living in Cities Used the Internet to Interact with Public Authorities in 2015
- Created: 13 September 2016
It is kwon that the use of the internet has been increasing over the last years both in cities and urban areas. A new study published by Eurostat (the statistical office of the European Union) titled ‘Urban Europe- statistics on cities, towns and suburbs’ reveals that, across the EU, 52% of people living in cities used the internet to interact with public authorities in 2015, 13 percentage points more than the share recorded in rural areas.
Regarding the difference between urban and rural areas, countries like Belgium, Luxembourg and the United Kingdom recorded almost no difference between the two groups. Nevertheless, the digital divide for online interaction with public authorities was much greater in Portugal, Lithuania, Croatia and Greece, where the gap between those living in cities and those living in rural areas reached 26 percentage points. Interaction with public authorities includes obtaining information from public administration websites, downloading official forms and sending filled in forms through the internet.
In general terms, the study ‘Urban Europe- statistics on cities, towns and suburbs’ says that in 2015, 80% of all households in the EU-28 were already connected to broadband internet. In addition, at least 90% of the households living in cities in the Netherlands, Luxembourg, Finland, Sweden, Germany, Denmark, the United Kingdom and Estonia had internet access; by contrast, no more than three quarters of all households in the cities of Cyprus, Greece, Lithuania and Bulgaria had access connection.
O-Sense
