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eGovernment (RP2023)

(A.) Policy and legislation

(A.1) Policy objectives

In the digital single market strategy, interoperability appears as an important enabler for boosting competitiveness. Cross-border interoperability is also considered key for modernising public administrations. At the European level, the Once Only Principle has for the first time been mandated by the implementation, as established by the Single Digital Gateway Regulation, of a technical system that allows the cross-border exchange of evidence relevant for the procedures under such regulation. The Once Only Principle entails that public administrations do not request from citizens and businesses to provide data that are already held by any public competent authority -even foreign authorities-, but take actions to share these data always in respect of data protection regulations and other applicable legal requirement, so citizens and businesses are requested to provide data of each type at most only once.

In addition to the multilingual challenge, semantic interoperability is compromised by the lack of commonly agreed and widely used data models, divergent interpretations of the same data and the absence of common reference data (e.g. code-lists, identifiers, taxonomies, references to organisations, geospatial references, license collections, etc.).

The European Commission, in the context of the former ISA2 programme (Interoperability solutions for European Public Administrations, Businesses and Citizens) currently Interoperable Europe (https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/collection/interoperable-europe/interoperable-europe), undertook a number of initiatives to achieve semantic interoperability in Europe.

The former ISA2 programme contributed in this area through several streams of work, focusing on the development, promotion and management of common data specifications, further described in the relevant subsections: DCAT-AP as a data standard to describe open data catalogues and datasets; ADMS-AP 2.0 as metadata description of reusable solutions, such as legal templates, data specifications and standards, technical protocols and open source software; European Legislation Identifier (ELI) to facilitate the exchange of legislation data in Europe; and Core Vocabularies as generic, simplified and reference data models of important master data types used across public administration information systems and applications, such as persons, businesses, locations, public organisations and public services. Work performed by the former ISA2 programme is continued through the Digital Europe Programme Regulation (Regulation (EU) 2021/694) by the current Interoperable Europe. In the Digital Europe Programme, the need for sematic interoperability is highlighted for the creation of the common European data spaces, a concept introduced by the European Strategy for Data as well as an enabler to seamless and secure cross-border electronic communication. 

In November 2022, the Commission proposed the Interoperable Europe Act to strengthen interoperability in the public sector. 

The Interoperable Europe Act (https://joinup.ec.europa.eu/interoperable-europe/policy) aims to solve interoperability challenges by creating the setup and tools for interoperability within public administrations on a Union-wide scale and remove the unnecessary legal, organisational, semantical and technical obstacles.  

While the proposal is still in negotiation it aims “to establish an interoperability governance structure designed to enable public administrations from all levels and sectors, as well as private stakeholders, to work together – with a clear mandate to agree on shared interoperability solutions (e.g. frameworks, open specifications, open standards, applications, or guidelines”. It foresees the creation of the ‘Interoperable Europe Board’, consisting in Member States and representatives from the Commission, the Committee of the Regions and the European Economic and Social Committee, with a mandate to propose measures (i) to relevant standardisation organisations and bodies to contribute to European standardisation activities and (ii) to collaborate with international bodies (including on open source solutions, open standards or specifications) that could contribute to the development of the cross-border interoperability. 

In all of these work streams, care is taken to ensure compatibility between the public sector and what the private sector can achieve, noting existing standards and specifications. There are accordingly some main technology areas that need to be addressed further and where standards are important for supporting the implementation of EU policy objectives:

  • DCAT-AP — This is addressed in detail in the section on Public Sector Information (PSI), Open Data and Big Data including a number of proposed actions;
  • Exchange of metadata on re-usable interoperability assets among national and international repositories: The Asset Description Metadata Schema (ADMS) is a metadata description of interoperability solutions;
  • Core Vocabularies to facilitate the development of interoperable IT solutions by ensuring a minimum level of interoperability for public administration master data usually stored in base registries.
  • The CPSVP-AP aims at describing public services in the same way across different Service Catalogues, to enable federation and search across such catalogues. 

The European interoperability framework is a commonly agreed approach to the delivery of European public services in an interoperable manner that defines basic interoperability guidelines in the form of common principles, models and recommendations. It is expected that many recommendations can help also the private sector for B2B, B2G and B2C services. For example, the European standard on electronic invoicing is based on the concept of semantic interoperability and supports B2B and B2G transactions.

(A.2) EC perspective and progress report

In the Digital Single Market strategy, interoperability and reduction of administrative burden appear as important enablers for boosting competitiveness. Cross-border interoperability and data exchange are also considered key for modernising public administrations. At the European level, the Once Only Principle has for the first time been included in the eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020, where it is one of the underlying principles. Subsequently, Member States have committed themselves to the Once Only Principle, such as in the Tallinn Declaration on eGovernment and the Berlin Declaration on Digital Society and Value-Based Digital Government. Furthermore, the Once Only Principle has been included in article 14 of the Single Digital Gateway Regulation adopted on 2 October 2018. Moreover, the recent Digital Decade Communication, sets that by 2030, everyone should benefit from “a best–in-class digital environment providing for easy-to-use, efficient and personalised services and tools with high security and privacy standards”. The implementation of the Once Only Principle is key to reaching this goal.

DCAT-AP 

DCAT-AP is a specification based on W3C’s Data Catalogue vocabulary (DCAT) for describing public sector datasets in Europe. For more information, see chapter 3.1.3 Public sector information

Exchange of metadata on re-usable interoperability assets (eGovernment)

Public administrations, businesses, standardisation bodies and academia are already producing interoperability solutions that, if (re)used, can facilitate interoperability among public administrations' services. However, these are not always easy to find. ADMS-AP 2.0 is a common way to describe interoperability solutions making it possible for everyone to search and discover them once shared through the forthcoming federation of repositories containing solutions for promoting interoperability.

With the intention to facilitate the visibility and re-usability of interoperability solutions across-borders and sectors, the Commission has made available a large set of interoperability solutions described using ADMS-AP 2.0, through a federation of asset repositories of Member States, standardisation bodies and other relevant stakeholders. Through this federation, accessible through the Joinup platform, semantic interoperability solutions may be searched and are made available through a single point of access.

Core Vocabularies to facilitate the development of interoperable IT solutions

The Commission's former ISA programme and currently Interoperable Europe is reducing semantic interoperability conflicts in Europe.

Agreement on definitions for the fundamental concepts should come firstly. These concepts are simplified data models which capture the minimal, global characteristics/attributes of an entity in a generic, country- and domain-neutral manner. Using a different terminology, these specifications are data models for important master data types used by numerous information systems and applications. These specifications are called "Core Vocabularies" in the former ISA2 programme, currently Interoperable Europe.

Working together with relevant stakeholders from public administration, industry and academia, the Commission has made available a series of core vocabularies with high reusability potential: the core person, the core business, the core location, the core public service, the core public organisation, the core criterion and core evidence, and the core public event vocabularies.

In 2015, the core public service vocabulary application profile (CPSV-AP) also became available. Activities on financial reporting are under consideration. 

Legislation interoperability

The European Legislation Identifier (ELI)  to make legislation available online in a standardised format including technical specifications on:

  • legislation URI - Uniform Resource Identifier
  • legislative resource metadata
  • information exchange format ontology

Akoma Ntoso for European Union (AKN4EU) is the future machine-readable structured format for the exchange of legal documents in the EU decision-making process.

(A.3) References

(B.) Requested actions

Action 1: Following the Covid-19 situation and the experience gained with the current level of digitalisation of government services, the European Commission and SDOs to cooperate on analysing the current level of digitalisation and identifying gaps and needs regarding standards to support and further accelerate digitalisation. This should also include best practices.

Action 2: European Commission together with SDOs to facilitate a broad exchange with stakeholders and public authorities on standardisation and interoperability for eGovernment services.

Action 3: SDOs to identify and inform about standards that are available or under way and that are of relevance in supporting the European Interoperability Framework.

Action 4: SDOs to consider with Interoperable Europe and Digital Europe programme the development of a set of standards around the EIF based on the specifications produced by the Interoperable Europe (former ISA2) and the Digital Europe programmes.

(C.) Activities and additional information 

(C.1) Related standardisation activities
W3C

The Registered Organization Vocabulary which is based on the Business Core Vocabulary has been published as a W3C Note by the W3C Linked Government Data Working group. http://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-regorg/

The W3C Data Exchange Working Group is chartered to create DCAT Version 3. Latest Draft is always at https://www.w3.org/TR/vocab-dcat-3/ DCAT has known gaps in coverage, for example around time series and versions. DCAT has been successful and is in wide use, but these gaps must be addressed if usage is to continue to grow across different communities and the variety of metadata schemas is to reduce. Maximizing interoperability between services such as data catalogs, e-Infrastructures and virtual research environments requires not just the use of standard vocabularies but of application profiles, initially created by DIGIT. This will also affect some of the Core Vocabularies produced by the Commission.

The Working Group is also tasked to deliver Content Negotiation by Application Profile and guidance on publishing application profiles of vocabularies, but those are not mature yet. More information can be found on the page of the Data Exchange WG: https://www.w3.org/2017/dxwg/wiki/Main_Page

ITU

ITU-T Focus Group on Data Processing and Management (FG-DPM) was created in March 2017. FG-DPM concluded its work with the development of several deliverables covering a variety of topics including the following:

    • DPM Framework for Data-driven IoT and Smart Cities and Communities
    • Technical enablers for open data platform
    • Data interoperability
    • Data quality management for trusted data

The complete list of deliverables is available here: https://www.itu.int/en/ITU-T/focusgroups/dpm

ITU-T SG20 is currently developing draft Recommendations and draft Supplements based on the FG-DPM deliverables such as draft Recommendation ITU-T Y.4484 (ex Y.eHealth-Semantic) “Framework to support Web of Objects ontology based semantic data interoperability of eHealth services”, draft Recommendation ITU-T Y.DPM-framework “       Data processing and management framework for IoT and smart cities and communities” and draft Recommendation ITU-T Y.DPM-qm “Requirements and functional model to support data quality management in IoT”. ITU-T SG20 is also working on draft Recommendation ITU-T Y.MIM “Minimal Interoperability Mechanisms for Smart and Sustainable Cities and Communities” and draft Recommendation ITU-T Y.DT-interop “Interoperability framework of digital twin systems in smart cities and communities”. ITU-T SG20 approved Recommendation ITU-T Y.4473 “SensorThings API - Sensing”, Recommendation ITU-T Y.4560 “Blockchain-based data exchange and sharing for supporting Internet of things and smart cities and communities”, Recommendation ITU-T Y.4561 “Blockchain-based Data Management for supporting Internet of things and smart cities and communities”, Recommendation ITU-T Y.4563 “Requirements and functional model to support data interoperability in IoT environments” and agreed Supplement ITU-T Y.Suppl.69 “Web based data model for IoT and smart city systems and services”, Supplement ITU-T Y.Suppl.62 “Overview of blockchain for supporting Internet of things and smart cities and communities in data processing and management aspects”.

More info: https://itu.int/go/tsg20

OASIS

The OASIS Transformational Government TC Framework (TGF) advances an overall framework for using information technology to improve the delivery of public services.

The OASIS Legal Document XML (LegalDocML) TC advances worldwide best practices for the use of XML within parliaments, assemblies, or congresses, within courts and tribunals, and generally for legal documents including contracts. The work is based on the Akoma Ntoso UN project. OASIS Akomo Ntoso is the basis of the future machine-readable structured format for the exchange of legal documents in the EU decision-making process, Akoma Ntoso for European Union (AKN4EU).

The OASIS Code List Representation TC is defining an XML format for interchange, documentation and management of code lists.

The Single Digital Gateway regulation includes a system for once-only electronic exchange of evidences for electronic cross-border procedures. The regulation references the European Commission’s eDelivery Building Block, which uses the OASIS/ISO standards ebXML Messaging and AS4, the eID Building Block, which uses OASIS/ITU SAML.

IEEE

Relevant IEEE activities include:

The IEEE CertifAIEd Program: Through certification guidance, assessment and independent verification, IEEE CertifAIEd offers the ability to scale responsible innovation implementations, thereby helping to increase the quality of AIS, the associated trust with key stakeholders, and realizing associated benefits. (https://engagestandards.ieee.org/ieeecertifaied.html)

Standards activities:

  • The IEEE P2141 series of standards on blockchain technology for enterprise information systems and anti-corruption applications for centralized organizations.
  • IEEE P3119 Standard for the Procurement of Artificial Intelligence and Automated Decision Systems is a new IEEE standards activity.
  • IEEE P2863 - Recommended Practice for Organizational Governance of Artificial Intelligence
  • IEEE P7007™ -Ontological Standard For Ethically Driven Robotics And Automation Systems
  • IEEE P7008™ - Standard For Ethically Driven Nudging For Robotic, Intelligent And Autonomous Systems
  • IEEE P7011™ - Standard For The Process Of Identifying & Rating The Trust-Worthiness Of News Sources
  • P3652.1™ -Guide For Architectural Framework And Application Of Federated Machine Learning
  • IEEE P7002™ -Data Privacy Process 
  • IEEE P7004™ -Standard On Child And Student Data Governance
  • IEEE P7006™ -Standard On Personal Data AIAgent
  • IEEE P7010™ -Wellbeing Metrics Standard For Ethical Artificial Intelligence And Autonomous Systems
  • P2807™, P2807.1™ -Knowledge Graphs (Framework, Evaluation)
  • P1872.2™ -Standard For Autonomous Robotics (Aur) Ontology
  • P2040™ -Standard For Connected, Automated And Intelligent Vehicles: Overview And Architecture
  • P2040.1™-Standard For Connected, Automated And Intelligent Vehicles: Taxonomy And Definitions
  • P2660.1™ - Recommended Practices On Industrial Agents: Integration Of Software Agents And Low Level Automation Functions
  • IEEE P2089 - Standard For Age Appropriate Digital Services Framework – Based On The 5 Rights Principles For Children
  • P2418.4™ -Standard For The Framework Of Distributed Ledger Technology (Dlt) Use In Connected And Autonomous Vehicles (Cavs)
  • P2751™ -3d Map Data Representation For Robotics And Automation
  • Pc37.249™ - Guide For Categorizing Security Needs For Protection And Automation Related Data Files
  • P2672™ -Guide For General Requirements Of Mass Customization
  • P2812™ - Guide For Minor Guardianship System For Online Mobile Gaming
  • P1589™ -Standard For An Augmented Reality Learning Experience Model
  • P2247.1™, P2247.2™, P2247.3™ - Adaptive Instructional Systems (Classification, Interoperability,And Evaluation)
  • P2830™ -Standard For Technical Framework And Requirements Of Shared Machine Learning
  • P3333.1.3™ - Standard For The Deep Learning-Based Assessment Of Visual Experience Based On Human Factors
  • IEEE P7000™ -Model Process For Addressing Ethical Concerns During System Design
  • IEEE P7001™ -Transparency Of Autonomous Systems
  • IEEE P7002™ -Data Privacy Process 
  • IEEE P7003™ -Algorithmic Bias Considerations
  • IEEE P7004™ -Standard On Child And Student Data Governance
  • IEEE P7005™ -Standard On Employer Data Governance
  • IEEE P7006™ -Standard Onpersonal Data AIAgent
  • IEEE P7009™ -Standard For fail-Safe Design Of Autonomous And Semi-Autonomous Systems
  • IEEE P7010™ -Wellbeing Metrics Standard For Ethical Artificial Intelligence And Autonomous Systems
  • IEEE P7012™ -Standard For Machine Readable Personal Privacy Terms
  • IEEE P7014™ -Standard For Emulated Empathy In Autonomous And Intelligent Systems

Pre-standards activities:

  • IEEE SA Industry Connection Program on AI-Driven Innovation for Cities and People; this program is focused on providing cities a governance mechanism to support responsible artificial intelligence systems (AIS);
  • IEEE SA Industry Connection Program on Alliance for Best Practices and Standards in Smart Cities; this program aims to develop close collaboration between the technology industry and city leaders and stakeholders towards smart city solutions across cities and regions.

For more information, please visit https://ieeesa.io/eu-rolling-plan

(C.2) additional information

Exchange of metadata on re-usable interoperability assets (eGovernment):

Several Member States already use ADMS-AP 2.0 to export interoperability solutions from national catalogues (e.g. Germany).

The Open Geospatial Consortium (www.opengeospatial.org) has also standardisation work available relevant to e-Government.

Core Vocabularies to facilitate the development of interoperable IT solutions:

The DG DIGIT and the DG CONNECT have developed other vocabularies and technical specifications to provide interoperability solutions under the ISA2 Programme and the CEF Telecom Programme. The use of these vocabularies and technical specifications is being promoted by the European Commission through funding programmes so public and private organizations are developing pilot projects and solutions that use them. In this context, some common standardisation action will be required to allow the use of these vocabularies and technical specifications in compliance with the public procurement legislation. Currently, Core Vocabularies are used in the Once Only Principle technical infrastructure. 

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