Spain ranks fifth in public digital services in the EU's 2022 DESI, up two places from 2021, surpassed only by Estonia, Finland, Malta, and the Netherlands.
Furthermore, in 2021, the Spanish population that interacted with public administrations via the internet grew significantly: 68.7% of the population between 16 and 74 years of age had some type of contact or interaction with public administrations via the internet, a percentage almost six points higher than that reached in 2020, according to the report "The Information Society in Spain 2022" by Fundación Telefónica.
The OECD ranks our country seventh in its composite digital phone number list government index, surpassing countries such as France, Italy, the Netherlands, and Germany.
Digital divide: only 70% of people over 65 use the internet
One of the most obvious gaps is age-related, as older people have significantly less access to the internet than younger people: barely 70% of the population over 65 uses the internet, as indicated in the report "The Information Society in Spain 2022" by Fundación Telefónica.
Another digital skills gap relates to educational attainment and qualifications: only three-quarters of those with primary education have connected to the internet in the last three months, and only 60% do so daily. These figures, for those who are illiterate or have incomplete primary education, drop to 55.6% and 41.2%, respectively.
The lack of availability of devices to access networks can become an additional digital divide: in 2021, a fifth of Spanish families did not have a computer, a necessary device for carrying out advanced uses of the internet, such as teleworking or online training.