In 2018, the Italian government launched the IO App, an open source application that aims at regrouping public services and making them available to citizens through a user-centric app. The IO App was born from the mission of Team Digitale to ‘build simpler and more efficient services for citizens, public administration and businesses, through innovative digital products’. Team Digitale’s mandate ended in 2019 and their projects, including the IO App, are now managed by the Digital Transformation Department within the Ministry for Technological Innovation and Digitalisation and the state-owned company Pago PA SpA.
The IO App is part of the Italian government’s strategy for the digitalisation of public administrations. In particular, the IO App is directly linked to the implementation of Regulation (EU) 2018/1724 establishing a single digital gateway to provide access to information, procedures, assistance, and problem-solving services. Therefore, the goal of the IO App is to provide a user-friendly and intuitive single access point for several public services both at the national and local level. The development of the app focused on the implementation of user-centricity and co-creation principles, among others. IO App is born from the analysis of citizen’s needs and its design keeps evolving with their contribution. Currently, the beta version of the app has been released on iOS and Android with a limited number of contributing public administrations. However, all public bodies are eligible to freely use the IO App and they can deploy their services in four simple steps detailed in the user guide. A roadmap is available to follow the developments of IO App.
The IO App is based on several enabling governmental platforms (SPID, pagoPA, ANPR, CIE), the new API interoperability model, as well as the tools and guidelines of designers.italia.it and developers.italia.it. The project is open source and all the components and documentation are available on GitHub under an EUPL-1.2 License.
IO App Features
To begin using IO App, citizens need to securely register to the app with their Public Digital Identity System (SPID) credentials or their Electronic Identity Card (CIE) combined with the associated code. Once the initial registration has been completed, subsequent logins can be done with a PIN code chosen by the user or biometric recognition (fingerprint or facial).
The IO App enables several digital services for citizens:
- Receiving messages from public administrations with an archiving option;
- Centralising contacts for national and local public services;
- Reminders of deadlines and updates with the possibility to enable alerts in personal calendars;
- Completing payments for services and taxes with pagoPA integrated in the app. The payments are secure and multiple payment methods (credit cards, debit cards, PayPal, etc.) are supported;
- Receiving and storing official documents, receipts and certificates; and
- Sharing preferences on desired services and means of contact (in-app notification, email, phone).
Besides the centralisation of digital services for citizens, IO App enables public administrations to benefit from the advantages of this single access point:
- Citizens’ contact information can be updated by citizens and not only by public administrations;
- Communication with citizens can be done through their tax code, without the need for a contact address or phone number; and
- Documents and payments can be sent or requested through the app.
More information
- Official IO App Website
- Team Digitale
- The developers.italia IO App page
- The ministry for technological innovation and digitalisation’s IO Apppage
- Pago PA SpA