The ultimate objective of the Representation Powers and Mandates (RPaM) Ontology is to put forth a commonly agreed vocabulary that conceptualises, formally encodes and makes data available about the representation of powers and mandates in an open, structured and machine-readable format.
Context
Information on legal entities and their powers and mandates is essential for businesses when establishing relationships with governments, customers or other businesses. However, the cross-border exchange of information is limited by the lack of semantic standards. The absence of such standards prevents automated data processing within Europe, and decreases information reliability. The European Commission aims to overcome this obstacle by creating a common classification for the powers and mandates of legal entities.
In the framework of the ISA2 Action 2016.12 - Semantic interoperability for representation powers and mandates, a thorough analysis has been carried out through various contracts and deliverables in order to understand the state of the art of the eMandates systems in the European Commission. As part of this analysis, the identification of cross-border use cases was also a cornerstone in the process of understanding the scope of this project.
Once the grounds were solid enough, the RPaM Ontology was developed - a common shared European data model for representing eMandates cross-border and cross-domain.
Benefits
- More reliable information on the representation powers and mandates of legal entities.
- Lower cost of information transfer, due to automated data processing.
- More efficient transfer of information on legal entities, due to greater semantic interoperability within the EU.
- Reduced administrative burden.
- A safe and reliable online environment for information exchange.
Working Group
A Working Group of European Member States representatives was set up in order to share and discuss in a regular basis the evolution of the ontology. The working group meetings were crucial as they allowed the development team to present their work to the EU Member States and to gather the feedback necessary to ensure the compliance of the model with the national information requirements in terms of powers and mandates. See Working group reports.
Specifications
In parallel to the development of the ontology, a set of specifications were progressively published. Their aim is to depict the development and functioning of the RPaM Ontology and to support the interested parties in the understanding and potential use of the RPaM ontology.
Guide on how to read and use the ontology conceptual model.
Detailed functional specification and technical design of the Ontology.
The governance and maintenance policy proposed for directing, developing and sustaining the project.
Definition of how a "harmonised service" is to be understood from the perspective of the RPaM ontology.
Use of the Core Criterion and Core Evidence Vocabulary (CCEV) model for the definition of information requirements and constraints.
Examples of how to implement e-Authorisation criteria (eAC) criteria and Power Use Constraints (PUC) criterion properties.
Challenges related to the re-assignment of powers by mandatees, including the revocation of one power granted in a chain of delegations.
The Ontology
The main artefacts composing the RPaM Ontology are the following:
- RPaM Ontology
- Conceputal Model: The set of concepts and categories representing powers and mandates, their properties and the relations between them.
- TTL: Turtle(.ttl) expression of the ontology.
- Business rules: Rules for the validation of business semantics and technical conformance of datasets implementing the ontology.
- EU Powers Taxonomy: Scheme used for the classification of Powers in the Ontology.
- Sample of information requirements and constraints: Examples of eAuthorisation Criteria (combinations of Information Requirements and Constraints) needed by Service Provider.
-> RPaM Ontology v1.1.0
| For additional details, visit the RPaM Github Repository |