Who answers? Who judges? Accountability perceptions in digital public health services: the case of France’s Mon Espace Santé from 2019 to 2026.

Abstract

As European governments increasingly delegate the governance of sensitive personal data to centralised digital platforms, questions of accountability to citizens have become structurally urgent yet analytically underdeveloped. This thesis therefore examines how accountability is perceived and understood by public officials and civil society, in the case of Mon Espace Santé (MES), France’s centralised digital health care platform, as an example of a digital public health service. To capture these understandings, ten semi-structured interviews were conducted, with five public officials and five civil society representatives. The 2019 law introducing MES, its following decrees, public communications and consultation reports were consulted for data triangulation. This thesis applies Bovens (2007) framework of accountability as a social relationship between an actor, here the government, and a forum, the citizens. Overall, this thesis aims to contribute to academic research on accountability in digital-era governance by highlighting differences in understandings and perceptions.