PCPStart with actual access to the service
The Federal Council adopted the digital-divide report on 9 September 2026, following the Digital Switzerland 2026 strategy of 12 December 2025. The PCP calls for effective access to be a verifiable objective of every transformation: the service must remain usable by the people it is intended to serve.
Success means completing a process: obtaining information, understanding requirements, providing documents and receiving an answer. A connection or account is insufficient. Difficulties may be lasting or arise through illness, equipment changes or unfamiliar circumstances.
The PCP calls for services to be designed with users. Testing should cover varied circumstances, accessibility tools and ordinary errors. Language should be clear, documents specified in advance and progress saved. An ambiguous instruction must not silently prevent access to a benefit.
Fund assistance that protects autonomy
Help must be accessible in cost, distance and opening times. It needs trained staff able to explain and guide a case. Digital education strengthens autonomy but cannot replace a response to an urgent request.
The PCP supports assistance without handing personal credentials to another person or exposing private details in unsuitable surroundings. Arrangements should identify who acts, with what permission and record. People must retain control of what is transmitted in their name.
The federal report envisages no additional resources at this stage. For the PCP, funding should follow verified needs. An advertised offer without actual capacity to receive people is insufficient. Assistance belongs in the full cost of transformation.
Maintain effective alternatives
Digital provision should expand choice. People unable to use it need a suitable route: a counter, telephone, post or assisted channel, depending on the process. The PCP defends genuinely equivalent treatment, including deadlines and response quality.
An alternative is not effectively available if cost, hours or distance make it impractical. Counter changes should be assessed against travel and local needs. Coordination should avoid multiplying procedures and repeated accounts of the same circumstances.
Outages also require preparation: inform users, preserve material received and resume without unnecessary repetition. Procedures must address consequences for deadlines within the framework of the service concerned.
Good work supports good public provision
A portal can remove tasks while creating others: assistance, correction, checking and exceptions. Savings must be tested across the whole service. Work shifted to users and relatives belongs in the assessment.
The PCP calls for staff involvement and training before introduction. Teams should report defects and propose improvements. An unsuitable tool can multiply workarounds and weaken data quality even where its features appear complete.
Objectives extend beyond case counts. Understanding complex circumstances takes time. Decision quality, access and error prevention must count. Digital systems should better support people and staff while reducing unnecessary tasks.
Retain control over data and contracts
The PCP supports identifiable public responsibility for information collected, its use and retention. Systems should obtain what the task needs, with defined access and correction. Security belongs in design and lasting maintenance.
Purchasing should include documentation, interfaces, reversibility and switching costs. Authorities need expertise to understand systems and examine suppliers. Digital sovereignty also means practical capacity to decide and continue operating.
Technical choices should be assessed across their lifetime: maintenance, updates, training and availability. Low initial prices can create costly dependence. Open tools and public cooperation deserve examination where usefulness, funding and maintenance are established.
Keep decisions explainable and open to challenge
Automation needs defined human responsibility. Where a system influences an important decision, the authority must be able to explain essential elements, identify error and correct it. The PCP supports accessible reconsideration with a competent contact.
People should know purposes and principal rules of use. Data protection and necessary security details must not prevent scrutiny of public choices. Commitments, results and difficulties should be intelligible to the competent bodies.
Assess the equality achieved
Follow-up should examine completed processes, abandonment, help requests and deadlines without unnecessary personal surveillance. Aggregate findings should reveal obstacles and verify corrections. Increased use alone does not prove difficulties have disappeared.
The PCP connects modernisation with social rights and democracy. It supports coordinated public action with explicit responsibilities and resources. The desired result is accessible services, better-equipped work and a population able to demand accountability for decisions affecting it.
Documents and sources
The cited documents provide the facts and provisions examined. Political judgments and proposals expressed in this article are those of the PCP.