A growing number of communities are offering citizens the services of a "digital public writer" to help them with their administrative procedures. Depending on the case, this service is offered by the social welfare center, the library, a digital public space or even by associations. As for the people in charge of this service, there is a wide disparity in situations: some communities call on a professional "public writer" who provides this service during office hours, a few hours a week. Other local authorities entrust this mission to one of their agents or create a position explicitly dedicated to this mission.

There is also a wide variety of situations in terms of the audiences for the "digital public writer" service: depending on the local authorities or associations, this service is primarily intended for the most "impeded" audiences, those who are illiterate or have no or poor command of the French language, or more generally for people who have difficulty with digital technology, particularly the elderly.

There is also a wide variety of configurations in terms of the spectrum of services: the "digital public writer" service generally refers to the completion of online administrative procedures or the drafting of e-mails "on behalf of the person": it can extend to the drafting of CVs or include an initiation component to digital tools. In some libraries, the service is provided by librarians, and by volunteers in several associations.

Finally, there is great diversity in the profiles that provide this service: specially recruited agents, young volunteers in the framework of the Civic Service, librarians in certain media libraries, professional "public writers", and even volunteers.

This "digital public writer" function largely covers the functions of mediation or digital support. If these communities put forward the terminology "digital public writer" rather than "digital mediator", which is generally used, it is probably because it gives a more concrete and immediately understandable content to the proposed service.

This terminology of "digital public writer" can also be a source of confusion for the profession of "public writer" which has also started its digital transformation.

One of the recommendations of the Strategy for the Prevention and Fight against Child and Youth Poverty (developed by the Interministerial Delegation for the Prevention and Fight against Child and Youth Poverty) was, moreover, to "promote the profession of public writer and launch a vast recruitment policy in public or subsidized organizations (CCAS, social centers, etc.).