5.1. enhancement of the Lithuanian residents’ ability to use the ICTs (hereinafter referred to as “Priority 1”);

5.2. development of the electronic content and services and promotion of use thereof (hereinafter referred to as “Priority 2”)

5.3. development of the ICT infrastructure (hereinafter referred to as “Priority 3”).

7.1. The objective shall be to encourage Lithuanian residents to gain knowledge and skills required for successful use of the ICTs and to become involved in the information society, to improve their quality of life and to reduce social exclusion (hereinafter referred to as "Priority 1 objective"), and to create the necessary conditions for that.

Many Lithuanian residents use a computer or the internet on a daily basis: the internet is used to declare taxes, to access bank services, to search for professional or entertainment content. Yet, some target groups of the Lithuanian population do not use a computer or the internet or use them scarcely. According to the Lithuanian Department of Statistics (hereinafter referred to as “Statistics Lithuania”), the following groups use the ICTs scarcely:

7.2. The tasks to achieve the Priority 1 objective:

8.1. The first objective is to encourage the residents to use online public and administrative services, and to ensure the quality of data transmission and the infrastructure of functioning search systems, thus contributing to the development of e-democracy (hereinafter referred to as “Objective 1 of Priority 2”).

The majority of online public and administrative services are complex services, i.e. the information necessary to provide public and administrative services is held by several public authorities and bodies, which introduce online public and administrative services on the basis of the internal working procedures and not on the basis of the legislation governing the provision of these services. Presently, too few public services have been transferred to the cyberspace in Lithuania and the use thereof not frequent enough. Fewer main public and administrative services (declaration of income or assets, job search, issue of personal documents etc) have been transferred into the electronic medium in Lithuania compared to the EU states. According to Eurostat, 60 % of the main public and administrative services had been transferred to the electronic medium in Lithuania in 2009, while the EU average stands at 74 %.

8.2. The tasks to achieve Objective 1 under Priority 2:

8.3. The second objective is to employ the ICTs to promote the Lithuanian culture and language (hereinafter referred to as “Objective 2 under Priority 2”).

It is important to ensure the survival of the Lithuanian language in the global information society, which is dominated by the English language. The ICTs may help disseminate information on the Lithuanian culture as widely as possible and thus contribute to the preservation and reinforcement of the European cultural diversity as well as to the spread of national self-expression. For commemorative institutions, such as libraries, archives, museums and other bodies protecting the Lithuanian cultural heritage, the ICTs open up new opportunities ensuring the preservation of their stocks of significant research studies as well as educational and artistic resources that perish with time, also their integration into the space of electronic cultural heritage and worldwide dissemination.

8.4. The tasks to achieve Objective 2 under Priority 2:

8.5. The third objective is to promote the development of e-business (hereinafter referred to as “Objective 3 under Priority 2”).

A number of Lithuanian small and medium businesses are reluctant to use new instruments fearing complicated e-business processes related to the operations of various business operators. These companies avoid additional costs resulting from the introduction of new instruments, doubt their advantages and often lack the requisite human resources to develop the ICTs and e-business. Apart from that, residents and businesses pursuing online business often encounter uncertainties relating to their rights and legal protection. At present, Lithuania has no active models for digital distribution of audiovisual content and there is no copyright administration on the web, because there is no collective copyright management aligned with technological progress necessary to enhance the system's transparency and supervision. On the other hand, Lithuanian consumers do not have access to foreign audiovisual content websites where they could obtain legal copies. Due to the said reasons, there is no single EU market in electronic content (information, e-services) and the segmentation restricts the demand for cross-border e-services as well as e-commerce and operations. For the said reasons, Lithuanian residents have underused the opportunities provided by e-commerce: only 8 % of the population buy goods or services online (EU average: 37 %), although as many as 44 % browse for information on goods or services (EU average: 51 %).

8.6. The tasks to achieve Objective 3 under Priority 2:

9.1. The first objective is to ensure a geographically consistent development of broadband electronic communication networks throughout the national territory and to promote the use of electronic communication services (hereinafter referred to as “Objective 1 under Priority 3”).

The future of economic, social and other activities is unimaginable without the internet. For Lithuania, universal access to broadband internet with the minimum speed of 512 kbps at a competitive price is a must. However, the development of infrastructure in the country has been uneven, and business is reluctant to develop it in remote areas. In Lithuania, internet is accessed mainly by way of the first-generation broadband connection, i.e. people go online using the existing networks of copper wires of telephone lines or television cables. According to Eurostat, Lithuania lags in terms of broadband connection penetration behind certain EU Member States: in 2009, 50 % of households used broadband internet connection, compared to the EU average of 56 %. In order to ensure broadband connection coverage, the public sector needs to take actions to avoid concentration of broadband networks only in densely populated areas, since geographically consistent development of broadband networks brings additional benefits to the economy and society.

9.2. The tasks to achieve Objective 1 under Priority 3:

9.3. The second objective is to ensure the safety and reliability of the cyberspace, to increase public and business confidence in the cyberspace (hereinafter referred to as “Objective 2 under Priority 3”).

Successful development of the information society requires a safe cyberspace based on the trust among the communicating persons and their responsibility. If the ICTs are not trustworthy, certain online services, such as e-banking or e-health, will be simply impossible to introduce. Probably, the most important pre-requisites for safe cyberspace are the creation and use of an infrastructure for personal identification instruments, the residents' ability to use the ICTs safely, understanding of possible threats posed by the cyberspace and knowledge of the ways how to prevent these threats. It is crucial to change the currently prevailing attitude that illegal acts in the cyberspace are unpunishable.

9.4. The tasks to achieve Objective 2 under Priority 3:

14.1.  shall, no later than by 1 July 2011, submit to the Programme coordinator the information on the implementing measures for the Programme's tasks envisaged in the draft strategic operational plans for the next year by specifying the envisaged measures, the funds required to implement them, the proposed work, the expected measure implementation results and the criteria for the assessment thereof.

14.2.  may update the implementing measures for the tasks set out in the Plan of Programme implementing measures as well as the amounts of the appropriations only with the consent of the Programme coordinator;

14.3.  no later than by February 1 annually, shall submit to the Programme coordinator information on the measures applied to achieve the Programme's objectives, i.e. shall specify the measures, the performed work, the achieved results, the problems in measure implementation, any measures that have not been implemented, and any changes in the values of the assessment criteria.

15.1.  with the aim to ensure objective assessment of the outcomes of the Programme’s implementing measures, by 1 July 2011, shall draft a monitoring methodology for the implementation of the Programme's priorities, objectives and tasks, which will provide for a single mechanism for the monitoring of the measures to be implemented by the competent authorities;

15.2.  by March 1 of each year, shall analyse the information received from the authorities responsible for the implementation of the Programme’s tasks concerning the measures necessary for Programme implementation and shall submit proposals and recommendations on the compliance of these measures with the Programme’s priorities, objectives and tasks;

15.3.  shall oversee the implementation of the Programme’s priorities, objectives and tasks; by 1 January 2016, shall carry out an interim review of the tasks set out in the Programme and of the changes in the values of their assessment criteria and, where necessary, shall initiate Programme revision;

15.4.  in its annual activity report, shall supply information on Programme implementation and, no later than by March 1 of each year, shall submit this information to the Committee on Information Society Development of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania; where necessary, the progress of Programme implementation shall be discussed in the sittings of the Coordinating Board of the Information Society Development Committee under the Ministry of Transport and Communications.