It is generally accepted that trusting authorities plays a key role in citizens' behaviour. Moreover, constitutional law places a duty on authorities to act in good faith and to behave in a trustworthy manner. At the same time, authorities wish to implement new technologies and AI systems to provide better public services and hope for efficiency gains. Swiss authorities were among the first to implement chatbots as AI systems. To try to limit their liability concerning the use of these systems, authorities on all levels of government chose to publish terms and conditions to advise the public and curtail the use of these chatbots. Although the legal qualification of these texts and the validity of their content are questionable, our research analyses the content and wording of these terms and conditions and the broad disclaimers they contain to determine their probable impact on trust. We argue that by refusing any accountability, the authorities present these services, and themselves by extension, as untrustworthy. This, in turn, might have a broader impact on the perception of AI in public services and the overall development of e-government services.

Smart cities in Switzerland are a part of the trend of digital transformation of public administration. These processes are led by local authorities in the municipalities (communes). Almost all aspects of public governance and public services can be considered as part of these digitisation efforts. Since Smart city programmes are designed by democratically led authorities, and because these programmes are goal-oriented and customer-centred in nature, we argue that local autonomy is necessary for a “good” implementation of a Smart city. However, the implementation of digital processes is mostly justified by gains of efficiency and effectiveness. Both technology as a tool, and the reasoning for implementing technologies might lead to centralisation processes and paradoxically, to a loss of local autonomy. The interests of cantonal and federal authorities to digitally transform public administration are already on the way to strip away the autonomy of municipalities in numerous areas. We argue that this tension, between local autonomy and a search for effective and efficient public services, is already present in the federal constitution and that the system lacks constitutional safeguards. Although further research is needed to better coin possible solutions, we suggest a few solutions that could help preserve local autonomy.