In order to provide quick and user-friendly public services to citizens and businesses, public administrations are trying to adopt customer-centric approaches and readjust their ways of working. One way to achieve efficiency and increase user-friendliness is through the ‘once-only principle’. Instead of asking the citizen for information that they have already provided, public administrations will reuse the information they already have. Much of this information is stored in authoritative databases called base registries. As the authentic sources of data for public administrations, base registries are one of the basic building blocks of public services and are the key to making the once-only principle a reality.
All the case examples for every guideline on Base Registries Interconnection, which are presented in the Guidelines on Access to Base Registries (v3.00), are grouped according to the layered interoperability model proposed by the European Interoperability Framework (EIF), as depicted below.
Legal interoperability
Legal arrangements
Guideline 1: Establish the overall Governance
To facilitate, accelerate and provide a comprehensive legal framework for sharing data between base registries, Member States may implement a general-purpose NIS. Such a framework has been implemented by Ireland through the Data Sharing and Governance Act 2019 .
The implementation of data sharing must be documented in a standard, written agreement that is concluded voluntarily between relevant bodies. Such agreement must specify the stakeholders, the shared information, the purpose and functional link, the legal basis, and who will or may use/disclose data. Accordingly, the Act defines the roles and the categories of specific public service information, including:
• Lead Agency: which normally acts as data controller (or a joint controller).
• Minister: it designates the base registries for use by public bodies, so that they can access BR personal data without having to collect it directly from service users.
• Registries owners: under the governance of the minister, when the information collected is qualified as a “base registry”, registry owners must ensure that the personal data are accurate and up to date.
• Data subjects: which are individual citizens. Their right to assess their own data is given through a personal data access portal (including information on any data breaches or data sharing agreements affecting them).
The 2019 Irish Act is one of the most recent and complete national legislations governing data sharing across public bodies. It follows previous efforts undertook by other countries, such as Spain, which in 2015 obliged public bodies to share data without requesting paper certificates from citizens. In a country characterised by multiple authorities at national, regional and local levels and different local languages, this represented another relevant example on the feasibility of legal tools aimed at fostering base registries data sharing and interoperability.
G2: Define the hierarchy of Norms and regulations
The X-Road® data exchange layer is continuously developed and managed by the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS). Two different X-Road ecosystems can be connected, which enables easy and secure cross-border data exchange between countries using X-Road. Among EU Member States, X-Road is used nationwide in the Estonia (X-tee data exchange layer) and in Finland (Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer service). Outside of the EU, X-Road is also used in Iceland (national X-Road environment Straumurinn) and in the Faroe Islands (Heldin environment).
NIIS members have their own X-Road ecosystems, and they are responsible for operating them. Any legal constraint related to X-Road is regulated on the NIIS member level and they apply to the X-Road ecosystem of the country in question. For example, both Estonia and Finland have their own laws and regulations that regulate the use of X-Road. Therefore, when referring to X-Road as an open-source software there are specific no laws or regulations directly related to it, but when referring to it as an ‘ecosystem’ in Estonia or Finland, the use of the national X-Road ecosystem is regulated at the national level, and each country has its own laws and regulations.
When it comes to non-EU countries, such as Iceland the same overarching EU rules on data protection apply, since it is part of the GDPR zone as an EEA state (the Icelandic Parliament passed its 2018 Data Protection Act - Act 90/2018- to implement the GDPR). The Faroe Islands – despite not part of the EU – have agreed to adopt similar level and modalities of data protection to the GDPR. This was recognised by the EU Commission through an adequacy decision which certified the Faroe Islands as a country providing GDPR-comparable levels of data protection.
G4: Delimitate the scope
The Irish Data Sharing and Governance Act is also a relevant example of scope delimitation relevant for base registries. The Irish Act regulates the sharing of information between Irish public bodies, including personal data – but also specifies special categories of data which are excluded.
These comprise all kind of crime-related data used for crimes prevention or prosecution as well as data related to state security, espionage, and defence. In accordance with GDPR, the principle (when no other EU rules apply already) is that a relevant body may and must disclose personal data to another, when this is relevant for the provision of a public service (performance, verification, avoidance of burden, assessment, …).
The Act – which must be reviewed on a regular basis (< 5 years) – also states that all relevant public bodies that must comply with the Act should be defined and listed by name (i.e. the Attorney General, the Police/Guardia Siochána), or by category (i.e. recognised school, bodies delivering public services under an agreement with a public body).
G5: Make data accessible through open source specifications
X-Road® is one of the main cross-border interoperability frameworks currently in use in Europe, mostly by northern European countries (including e.g. Finland, Estonia and Iceland). Despite operated centrally, X-Road is based on a distributed architecture where each member organisation of the ecosystem manages its own data and controls who is allowed to access it.
X-Road software is open source and provided for free under the MIT licence . This means that any individual or organisation can copy the source code of the software, adapt it to their own needs as far as necessary, and use it for developing their own service.
Like all open-source licences, the MIT licence specifies that the software is provided “as is”, without warranty of any kind, and that the authors will never be liable for any claim, damages or other liability. To help new X-Road users get started, NIIS provides a set of online resources that are all available free of charge. However, NIIS does not provide technical support or consultation services. There is an X-Road Technology Partner programme in which members are companies providing X-Road consultation services. It is recommended to contact one of the partner companies for more extensive support.
The MIT licence is simple, permissive (recipients can implement it in the way most suitable for their needs) and not reciprocal: a recipient can develop their own version, keep all improvements secret and make their whole version proprietary. This is one of the principal differences between MIT licence and the European Union Public Licence (EUPL) that is reciprocal: in the case the software is re-distributed (and providing access online via a network as a form of distribution) recipients must disclose and provide the source code back, under the same EUPL licence. The two licences are compatible, meaning that source code covered by the MIT licence can be re-licensed under the EUPL (the reverse is not true, though).
G6: Facilitate data sharing beyond national borders
The purpose of a cross-border framework is to organise access to base registries in different countries, i.e. “trans-European access” as the case may be. Trans-European Systems (or solutions) are operational interoperable solutions for cross-border exchange of data between public administrations’ base registries and, in some cases, between citizens or businesses.
TES are normally owned by the European Commission or by private initiatives and foundations often co-funded by Member States in the framework of EU-polices on cross-border cooperation. The table below lists some examples of running (or planned) TES projects:
TES projects Details
• ECRIS: European Criminal Records Information System (restricted access; for relevant authorities only)
• EUCARIS: European car and driving licence information system (restricted access; for relevant authorities only)
• IRI: Insolvency Registers Interconnection (public access available through the e-Justice portal)
• BRIS: Business Registers Interconnection System (public access available through the e-Justice portal)
• EPRIS: European Police Records Index System (restricted access; for relevant authorities only)
• LRI: Land Registers Interconnection (public access; advanced features only for authenticated legal professionals)
• EVIDENCE2 e-CODEX: Exchanges in counterterrorism operations and in the fight against global crimes (restricted access; for relevant authorities only)
• EBOCS: European Business Ownership and Control Structures (restricted access; for relevant authorities only)
• eu-LISA managed systems
- SIS-II (Schengen system alerts regarding various cases / criminal matters);
- VIS (visa applications from third country nationals to the Schengen area);
- EURODAC (fingerprint of asylum seekers and irregular border-crossers);
- EES Entry-Exit System (planned monitoring of border-crossing third-country nationals)
Given their cross-border dimension, TES implementations often require the negotiated adoption of specific legal instruments (legal basis) and are normally built on voluntary participation where members can opt-in (e.g. for Land Register Interconnection). This process normally requires multiple years of consensus-building activities and national legal frameworks reconciliation.
The projects above include examples of different ways of dealing with data control:
• Multiple data controllers in a platform interconnecting decentralised databases (e.g. EPRIS, EUCARIS or for the systems managed by the eu-LISA Agency.)
• Owner of a central component storing core data acting as single data controller (e.g. EU Commission for BRIS/ e-Justice portal)
Specific body is assigned the role of data controller through agreement among different stakeholders (e.g. e-CODEX or EVIDENCE2, where a foundation is assigned with the role of data controller for all personal data processed through the system).
G9: Set-up a legal framework favouring enforcement of data protection laws
In the Netherlands the approach to data protection has entailed the adoption of a ‘standard’ data protection schema to provide individuals control of their data. The schema - named QiY and provided by the homonymous foundation that includes private and public organisations (e.g. Ministry of Economy and Ministry of Interior) - defines a trust framework for individual users, companies, and government organisations. Such a schema allows users to obtain full, secure and private control of their personal data and the possibility to choose which data to share with third parties. The schema is provided in open format with specific guidelines for its implementation.
Related to the ‘proportionate’ instruments, one example could be the objective of unburdening citizens, reflected in the legislation in Spain through Laws 39 and 40 of 2015. These amend the previous legal framework on public administrations and common administrative procedures. The current context is more flexible and, similarly to other EU countries, Article 28 of the new Law 39 allows the sharing of data, unless citizens express their non-consent.
Interesting examples of how the control of data can be legally and safely given back to citizens (when accessing base registries) are the solutions MyData on Finland and Datove Schranky in Czech Republic, that have strong roots in their national legal frameworks and developed user-centric approaches to manage the relationship between legal entities and public administrations.
Organisational Interoperability
Data Policies
G10: Ensure the right users access original and authentic data
The Danish Basic Data Programme is a good example of data governance model implemented at national level. Its intended purpose was to overcome typical challenges related to base registries data, such as duplications, differences in definitions, data silos not connected to each other (resulting in shadow registers) , and flaws in data management.
Focusing on 5 categories of basic data, selected by the Programme (Spatial Data, Address Data, Property Data, Company Data, Personal Data) and covering more than 10 authoritative registries, the programme identified five processes for data access to be implemented , as a “way to open easy-to-access high-quality basic data”:
(1). To ensure the reuse of data and to prevent double registration and shadow registries, map data, cadastral maps, Central Business Register data, and company data, will be financed by the government and released to the public and the private sectors, as is already the case with address and real property data.
(2). To enhance the quality of data, the registries of map data, real property data, address data, as well as business registries, will be expanded to include other necessary data.
(3). To make it possible to link data, efforts will be made to ensure that all data conforms to the same technical requirements.
(4). To improve the distribution of common public sector data, a common infrastructure is to be established providing for stable and efficient distribution of data, a data distributor.
(5). To ensure efficient, effective, and coordinated development and use of basic data, a cross-institutional basic data committee is to be established.
In conclusion, with the implementation of the Basic Data Programme, Denmark defined the basic data as a common digital resource to be freely used for commercial and non-commercial purposes and established a common data governance model through data governance rules, and specific governance bodies with roles and responsibilities for different categories of basic data.
G11: Esure the security of the data access and its communication (Data Security Policy)
The Danish e-Boks platform is an interesting case of data security arrangements relevant for base registries. The idea behind e-Boks is to allow citizens to monitor their data as it arrives directly from the key national registries, and to notify the authorities about any possible quality issues related to their data.
The solution has been first made accessible to the entire population, with the idea to extend its enforcement to cover the use of data-boxes by companies. In this sense Denmark is one of the few countries that has been able to develop a comprehensive legal and policy framework to effectively support the implementation of public data-related security policy on the relation between citizens and public administrations.
Another example at national level on the governance of base registries can be found in Italy, where a national code for digital administrations establishes which databases are of national interest and which administration oversees each such database. Hence, there are base registries with information of national interest (e.g., a national residents population registry, the registry of tax administration etc.) and each administration is responsible for the maintenance and provision of legal value for the data they maintain.
G12: Ensure and control the quality of the data by all means (|Data Quality Policy)
Denmark: When it comes to data quality, in Denmark , the update of data occurs on a base registry level, and a data distributor joins the process when the data are ready for publication and distribution to data consumers. In case the data is incorrect, an update has to follow based on a pre-determined set of rules. For cases of simple mistakes, if stated in the law, citizens can correct them directly by providing their data to entity responsible for the first contacted registry (e.g. at local level the municipality). Subsequently other registries reusing these data are responsible to approve the data inputted by the first registry.
Luxembourg: citizens can contribute to raise the accuracy of data in Luxembourg, thanks to officially authenticated means. In particular, through a personal space on the MyGuichet.lu, citizens are enabled to directly view their data and submit online requests for corrections when inaccuracies are identified. Additionally, what is interesting is that the Luxembourgish government also sends an extract from the registry once per year by postal mail, allowing citizens to notify the authorities in case a correction is needed.
Netherlands: the Netherlands is one of the countries where is also responsibility of the 'data subject' to ensure that the provided data is correct. This implies an obligation to report a move to another address to the relevant authorities and base registries. What some Member States are missing from national frameworks regarding data quality is the functionality or service that enables people to report errors in the base registries (i.e. the absence of a feature to highlight errors).
Belgium: the OSLO Framework represents a group of data standards created in Flanders (Belgium), which allows notifications and feedback to be provided for a topic. A user who has a comment on a topic can notify the relevant distributor who has to implement any applicable changes. This process guarantees that the comment will reach the correct base registry or responsible entity, disengaging thus the user from dealing directly with the issue.
Norway: as part of its efforts to control data quality throughout the entire data lifecycle , Norway launched the Altinn data sharing platform. Data from the public sector can be shared through the portal, providing a data pre-filling function, when reporting to the government. About 95% of reporting from businesses to the government in Altinn is represented by structured (machine-readable) data. Thanks to the fact that such data ids frequently checked/validated or updated by the platform users themselves (citizens and businesses), data quality in Altinn remains high over time.
Governance Structure
G13: Envision the global (holistic) organisational picture
Stelselcatalogus in the Netherlands
The System catalogue (Stelselcatalogus ), in the Netherlands can be used as reference for a data governance model on the interoperability governance. It establishes a clear governance structure, data quality maintenance guidelines and a practical organisational model for the interoperability of base registries with concrete public services. One of the advantages of this catalogue is its integration with the government central portal and tools, which allows public administrations and service providers to orchestrate administrative processes and execute public works in a coordinated way.
X-Road approach to roles and responsibilities
In the X-Road ecosystems the different roles, responsibilities and liabilities in the data management process are clearly defined. Each ecosystem consists of an X-Road Operator, Member organisations, and Trust Service Provider(s). As the owner of the X-Road ecosystem, the Operator is responsible for all the aspects of the operations. The responsibilities include defining regulations and practices, accepting new members, providing support to Members, and operating the central components of the X-Road software. X-Road Members are organisations that have joined the ecosystem and produce and/or consume services with other Members. Thus, a member organisation can be a service provider, a service consumer, or both. Trust Service Providers are organisations in charge of providing two key services for the functioning of a trusted X-Road ecosystem, namely: 1) a time-stamping authority (TSA) and 2) a certification authority (CA).
G14: Establish interoperability agreements to ensure base registries and public services sustainability
National bilateral agreements between - Estonia and Finland in the X-Road example
At national level, the existing cross-border bilateral agreement between Estonia and Finland illustrates the development of a joint data exchange platform in order to make digital services mutually accessible for inhabitants, by reusing existing national infrastructure (i.e. the Estonian X-Road). In practical terms, this means that the data kept in base registries (tax boards and social insurance agencies, for a starter) are made accessible to citizens and authorities of both countries, allowing them to avoid repeatedly submitting data when operating in either country, if they have already filed in one country already. For instance, entrepreneurs will no longer have to prove, in both States, the absence of tax arrears. Also, those wishing to officially work in Finland will no longer have to submit there, every year, the paper copy of the pension insurance certificate.
Interoperability agreements in the context of EU initiatives
Interoperability agreements are usually modelled on templates. One project that is providing simple, but practical templates, is the Centre of Excellence for Information Sharing (CEIS). This Information Sharing Agreement (ISA) defines the arrangements for processing data between different partners and sits underneath the overarching Information Sharing Protocol (ISP) / Partnership Agreement.
In the domain of business registries, a relevant example is the European Business Registers (EBR) organisation (and platform) which is based on the cooperation between the participating registries on an Information Sharing Agreement[4]. In this one in the contracting parties undertook the duty to give each other access to information stored in their business registers. The experience and developments accumulated from the EBR were taken in the design of the Business Registers Interconnection System (BRIS).
Other initiatives go beyond the definition of templates and the design of interoperability agreement models. That is the case of the Model Interoperability Agreement (MIA) developed by the European E-invoicing Service Providers Association (EESPA) for the transmission and processing of electronic invoices and other business documents.
Change Management
G15: Draft a change management plan
In Belgium, business registries offer most of their data for free and without access restrictions (in business registries there are very few data subject to data protection, such as industrial property, national security, or other superior restrictive legal systems). In parallel, some Belgian organisations and administrations promoted early the change into Open Data paradigms.
Some examples are the Belgium Business Register (KBO BCE), the datasets open at the national level at data.gov.be portal , and the Open Access Belgium that provides access to relevant repositories and projects related to base registries and public services interoperability, such as VDAB (employment) or OSLO (Open Standards for Administrations in Flanders), among others
G16: Implement and release change requests
X-Road supports a research-focused change management approach. that in Finland and Estonia relies on collaboration projects with two universities ( University of Tartu and Tallinn University of Technology).
These conduct research on the expansion of X-Road communication capabilities. For instance, an ad-hoc research project was launched in order to study the possibility of extending X-Road messaging capabilities – based to on synchronous data exchange (via request-response message pairs), to cover asynchronous one-to-many messaging.
This need emerged from feedback received from users, so the integration between X-Road and existing open-source messaging solutions was analysed in order to rapidly develop a solution that could meet the newly emerged needs.
Business Continuity
G17: Ensure digital preservation and permanent access to data
Examples of recommended consolidated standards related to the preservation of base registry data are PREMIS , which aims at supporting the preservation of digital objects and ensuring their long-term usability, and PRONIM, a web-based technical registry to support digital preservation services.
For an example of permanent storage of records, the existing WORM (Write Once Read Many) solutions can be studied, that assure that data cannot be tampered with once written to a device.
Semantic Interoperability
Master Data Management (MDM)
G19: Define an MDM style
For example, in Denmark registries are a combination of coexistence and consolidation styles, as they are autonomous, but can communicate with each other. This interconnection is based on law, as well as on the authoritative source and ownership of data. Denmark has a long tradition and history of having authoritative registries and data sets. One of the first digital registries in the world was established in this country – and it was a Civil Registration number registry (hereafter CPR registry), dated from 1968. There is also a centralised platform for the base registries, the already mentioned Data Distributor, which collects data from all registries and is the unique point of centralisation of data in Denmark.
In Sweden , two different data management styles are represented – the registry style and consolidation style. The rationale behind the selection of these two styles lies in the fact that registries are regulated by different laws, given there is no common law defining a base registry in Sweden.
In Norway , a combination of styles is used depending on the registry. Thus, there are three main national registries in Norway, namely, land registry, business registry and civil registry. Land registry is based on a consolidation style, while the remaining ones follow the transaction/centralised style.
At EU level, the hybrid search can serve as an example, where data must be searched in a central repository and in distributed base registries based on the coexistence style. This is the architecture developed for BRIS by the EC. This approach was dictated by the requirements imposed by at least three Member States that could not afford to centralise any of their data and included a reduced set of data for indexation and performance enhancement purposes, such as legal entity names and registered address of the business.
G20: Define data types and their management approach
Data management approach from X-Road in Estonia and Finland
Regarding the data management approach, one can learn from the way X-Road is dealing with data management as it provides a lot of flexibility to those implementing it. Despite having Once-Only as the guiding principle, X-Road does not impose it and, moreover, it supports different approaches to data management. To illustrate this example, we can mention Estonia and Finland and the way master data management of personal data is handled by each of them. Estonia implemented the once only principle, which means that data are fetched directly from the responsible authority. In Finland, the situation is different – although it has OOTS implemented when needed – another common approach used is to replicate (a relevant subset of) the master data registry in organisations’ database and download updates regularly. However, exchange of data between the two countries is achieved through the master base registries.
Data management approach from MyGuichet in Luxembourg
Another interesting frontend data management approach has been adopted by Luxembourg. Firstly, one should note the context of the access to base registries that concerns online procedures, which is performed in Luxembourg mainly through the personal space proposed to each user at MyGuichet.lu (part of the one-stop-shop guichet.lu managing online procedures). Guichet.lu is, simultaneously, a repository of 1500 descriptions of administrative procedures for citizens and businesses, as well as of more than 200 interactive online procedures (via MyGuichet). This online platform operates, to a very large extent, on the Once Only principle (OOP) on the level of procedures, and allows users to see which data are kept on them from the most important authentic sources, providing also the reuse of such data via prefilling of the forms in the context of online procedures. The situation in Luxembourg can be rightly described as a user-centric or a user-driven approach. Data is not directly connected or exchanged between authentic sources, but rather driven by users who request specific information. This means that citizens actually submit the information only once. Moreover, organisations acquire the data through procedures which are defined by law, and they need to ensure the accuracy of the data before storing in their own database.
Technical Interoperability Norms (NTI) in Spain
One example of management of data implemented within the governance policy is from Spain. Its National Interoperability Framework was included in the Law through Royal Decrees and deployed in the (mandatory) Technical Interoperability Norms (NTI). This policy covers almost all aspects of interoperability and public services governance. Among them is the management of data which is mainly reflected in a norm for the interoperability of data (“protocolos para la mediación de los datos”, literally “data mediation protocols[).
G21: Identify unique and unambiguous instances of your master data
For an example of the usefulness of providing multiple identifiers, one can study how the OASIS Universal Business Language (UBL) TC specification is used in documents for electronic procurement, like tenders or invoices. This specification is currently used for different applications in various Member States and EU Institutions (namely the European Commission).
Semantic Data Models and Standards
G23: Distinguish scope and use of metadata
One example of an EU initiative that defines unambiguously complex legal concepts and cross-sector and cross-borders reusable code lists is ECRIS. ECRIS defined an exhaustive list of terminology and concepts used by stakeholders for the exchange of criminal records. It also created a code list defining criminal offences that are recognised by all Member States, allowing the possibility for it to be used in other sectors (e.g., in e-Tendering, for the identification of certain exclusion criteria). Both are referred to in the regulatory framework supporting ECRIS.
The ESOs that maintain code lists are CEN, CENELEC and ETSI. They do so, based on the legal mandate provided by Regulation (EU) 1025/2012 on European standardisation also known as ‘Standardisation Regulation’. , which settles the legal framework for standardisation. The three ESOs provide their assets and code lists online in open format
G25: Reuse semantic assets: Ontologies and taxonomies
In Finland, a major research initiative, namely, the National Semantic Web Ontology Project (FinnONTO) , was carried out during 2003–2012 with the goal of providing a national-level semantic web ontology infrastructure based on centralised ontology services.
Since 2008, a prototype of such a system, the ONKI Ontology Service, has been used in a living laboratory experiment with more than 400 daily human visitors and over 400 registered domains using its web services, including the ONKI mash-up widget for annotating content in legacy systems and semantic query expansion.
The FinnONTO infrastructure also includes the notion of creating and maintaining a holistic Linked Open Ontology Cloud (KOKO) that covers different domains,it is maintained in a distributed fashion by expert groups in different domains and it is provided as a national centralised service.
G26: Reuse semantic assets: Core Vocabularies
A good example of reuse of Core Vocabularies with successful modelling of the data domain and definition of core concepts is the OSLO project (Open Standards for Linked Administrations in Flanders). OSLO started in 2012 and is facilitated by a working group of ICT experts from local, regional and federal public administrations and ICT service providers. The project aim is to develop a semantic agreement and build a consensus on standards for information exchange. The project’s outcome, the OSLO vocabulary is a simplified, reusable and extensible data model that captures the fundamental characteristics of information exchanged by public administrations in the domains of: contact information, localisation and public services.
The standards of the Flemish OSLO project are local extensions of the Core Person, Business, Location, and Public Service vocabularies of the SEMIC eGovernment Core vocabularies. OSLO Vocabularies are simplified, reusable, and extensible specifications and serve as the starting point for developing interoperability across government systems as they allow mappings with existing data models. This helps public administrations attain cross-border and cross-sector interoperability.
Additionally, OSLO also extended DCAT-AP (see Guideline 27). The current data standards of OSLO are Open Standards, listed in vocabularies, application profiles and code lists. Moreover, the project offers open-source tools that can be reused for the implementation of data models. Currently, OSLO contains over 190 configurated standards in which more than 3300 terms are defined by more than 470 contributors . One of the most interesting aspects of the OSLO domain models is the modelling of persons, organisations, and roles.
G27: Reuse semantic assets: Standard Application Profiles
In Norway, the National Data Catalogue , based on the DCAT-AP model, is already implemented. Since DCAT-AP does not cover all the aspects, Norway created extensions and incorporated them in DCAT-AP-NO , that is currently under review to be aligned with the newest version of DCAT-AP.
Here is some interesting information about related aspects of this catalogue:
- Two major open data catalogue sets are automatically harvested by the National Data Catalogue: https://geonorge.no/en and https://data.norge.no
- In addition to the automatic harvesting, an application was developed aiming to register data sets with the National Data Catalogue
- The National Data Catalogue contains descriptions of all major base registries in Norway (i.e. the central registry of population, registry of legal entities, Land Registry and Cadastre, Norwegian Digital Contact Information Register)
- The National Data Catalogue is on the data sets-level, and the work is ongoing with information models, concepts, etc., with data owners to describe the elements of data sets
- Due to the connection with the European Data Portal, the EU vocabulary is being used to cover the themes of data sets, in addition to the national vocabulary
- Other extensions (profiles) designed to facilitate specific needs not covered by DCAT-AP include the Italian profile DCAT-AP_IT , the Belgian profile DCAT-AP-BE and the Swedish and Norwegian profiles DCAT-AP-SE and DCAT-AP-NO . The last is aligned with DCAT-AP 2.0.0, DCAT 2.0, and BRegDCAT-AP v2.00.
G28: Publish data as Linked Data
Linked Base Registry in Belgium
In Belgium, the Flemish government with OSLO² (Open Standards for Linked Organisations) is committed to an unambiguous standard for the exchange of information, ensuring greater consistency and better discoverability of data, so everyone can use easily aggregated information from different national, regional and local e-Government information systems.
OSLO² is the logical succession of the OSLO (Open Standards for Linked Administrations) initiative which laid the basis for an open semantic information standard. In this context, the Linked Base Registry for addresses is the effort of the Flemish Government administration to align the base registry for Addresses with the design principles of Linked Data, by unfolding the process followed for raising semantic interoperability based on Linked Data principles.
Dutch Addresses and Buildings key register in the Netherlands
In the Netherlands, the Dutch Addresses and Buildings key register (BAG) is published as linked data . BAG is an automated system in which Dutch municipalities keep their information about local addresses and buildings up to date. Municipalities store this information in the National Facility for Addresses and Buildings (BAGLV). The Land Registry Office (Kadaster) manages the National Facility and makes the data available to governments, companies, institutions and citizens.
Felles Datakatalog with Linked Data paradigm in Norway
The Felles Datakatalog in Norway adopts the Linked Data paradigm as a basic building block. It implements a comprehensive specification known as DCAT-AP-NO designed to serve as the foundation for the exchange of datasets and data services. Moreover, the choice and implementation of well-known standards (i.e., SKOS, DCAT) results in a platform that is already aligned in a significant way with the BRegDCAT-AP specification.
There is also a SPARQL endpoint that allows querying the RDF datasets on the platform. It is important to highlight that, although query results are presented in a user-friendly visual component, results can also be downloaded in both JSON and CSV serialisation formats for further processing on the user’s side.
Although not explicitly mentioned or linked in the user-friendly section of the platform, all entities (e.g., datasets, concepts) are modelled as RDF documents serialised in Turtle and publicly exposed on the Internet. It is also useful to note that, thanks to the strict Linked Data implementation, machine-readable dataset distributions can be easily identified and downloaded.
Technical Interoperability
Data Architecture
G29: Choose a data architecture model adapted to your organisational model
One example of such an initiative is represented in Estonia and Finland, which initiated and succeeded in their cross-border data exchange by utilising the Estonian X-Road .
First, the cooperation was signed on the high governmental level by the prime ministers of Estonia and Finland in 2013 (the Memorandum of Understanding about the cooperation in the field of ICT), and in 2014 Estonia provided X-Road to Finland under the EUPL licence, thus the project of the Finnish X-Road implementation started.
Soon afterwards, both countries found out that they needed to share the same X-Road core system and maintain the interoperability between X-tee (Estonian data exchange layer) and the Suomi.fi (Finnish data exchange layer) to enable cross-border data exchange between Estonia and Finland, thus the collaboration initiative was extended in 2015-2016 for the joint development of X-Road. Finland's Population Register Centre and the Republic of Estonia's Information System Authority were assigned as responsible entities for the coordination of the X-Road core development, and a set of practices and guidelines have been also agreed to for managing the cooperation.
Lastly, a shared organisation was established, namely, the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) , which took over the development of the X-Road open-source technology. It is interesting to learn that for the X-tee and Suomi.fi-palveluväylä member organisations nothing changed, namely, Finland's Population Register Centre and the Republic of Estonia's Information System Authority remain responsible for their national systems and provide the same support services to their members.
Considering that X-Road is an open-source software and ecosystem solution that provides unified and secure data exchange between organisations, free of charge, any interested country or organisation can implement it.
What is usually underlined as an important aspect of X-Road is its growing ecosystem. Establishing connections between different data sources is good and, of course, needed. However, what is described as a key matter is enlarging the number of services which can be interconnected. Benefits from the technical perspective are also numerous, namely, with X-Road, cross-border and national data exchanges are implemented through the same channel. This means that there is no need of adding new integrations when exchanging data with a different partner organisation/coun
G30: Reuse data architectural approaches on data exchange platforms
Interconnecting platforms in Member States vary in data management and technical points of view and – among good practice examples – it is recommended to study the following ones:
- X-Road (Estonia and Finland): independent data exchange layer for information systems, allowing secure internet-based data exchange, based on interoperability agreements between data providers and data consumers.
- Data Distributor (Denmark): intermediation platform enabling data distribution, serving as a common authoritative data distribution point, to make it easier for public administrations to publish and use the authoritative type of data. It provides access to over five hundred different services that are exposed in the form of web services, file extractions and events on behalf of over twenty different registries.
- MAGDA (Belgium): A service-oriented data exchange infrastructure for accessing base registries of citizen and enterprise data, at regional, local and federal levels (where applicable). The platform provides access to base registries of citizen and enterprise data, harnessing reusable technologies that can be easily adapted to the needs of different government administrations, from the regional to the local level, and increasingly to the federal level.
G32: Enable data access supported by APIs
The possibilities arising from the use of API catalogues and base registries have already led many European countries to proceed with the creation of such structures at national level, which comprise most of the public electronic services provided by the central government.
- France: the French government which has created a portal that lists and provides access to all state-related APIs. The services of this portal combined with a digital identity platform (dubbed France Connect ) offer citizens composite digital services, regardless of which agency offers the service.
- Ireland: another good example adapted to the logic of using API catalogues and base registries is the Data Architecture strategy in Ireland. It describes the decision for public bodies to provide data access supported by APIs, data discovery to be facilitated by the Government API Catalogue and dictates the mandatory adoption of base registries which can be accessed through appropriate APIs.
- Luxembourg: Luxembourg is defining standardised APIs, so that systems – having their own way of structuring and defining data – are able to communicate in a standardised way, which creates a more realistic and productive approach. Standardised APIs are less invasive and give more liberty to authorities responsible for certain domains. At the same time, this is a way to achieve interoperability on a national level.
- Belgium: for the effective set-up of APIs, design guidelines can be very helpful for both API service providers and consumers of these services, also to support the development of aspects that relate to API performance, versioning, language and errors handling. To this end, the Belgian government maintains a guide of best practices for building Restful Web Services. This guide aims to improve compatibility between services provided by the government agencies and is a living document, updated when new interoperability issues arise or when REST-related standards evolve .
G33: Develop specific strategies to steer APIs implementation
- Dutch API strategy implementation: In relation to API strategies, it is worth mentioning the Dutch implementation . The Netherlands had to deal with two major problems with the use of public services accessed through an API, namely i) the description of services was made through heterogeneous techniques and ii) the various services were scattered in the infrastructure of each host public organisation. To have a single way to describe all APIs and a central point for sharing their descriptions the Open API Specification (OAS) was adopted: a standardised format that makes it easy to generate documentation that always matches the architecture of an API. In addition, OAS implementations provide the possibility of importing and hosting OAS API definitions in one central platform. In addition, the Netherlands, to support their API strategy, created a knowledge platform (supported by public and private participation) aimed at making APIs more responsive to demand, exchanging knowledge on API implementation, and coordinating approach across organisations .
- Developments in the X-Road communication protocol: The X-Road ecosystem, Initially chose to offer its services based on top of SOAP (Simple Object Access Protocol) which at that time is the de facto standard for web service communication protocols. SOAP based APIs have built-in support for features such as security, authorisation but the protocol itself defines too many standards and it takes a considerable amount of time for a developer to grasp its services. Along the way, another web service communication mechanism came to the fore, REST (Representational State Transfer) which in general is faster, more lightweight and easier to use than SOAP. For these reasons, new clients of X-Road and even the old ones wanted to use the REST mechanism for interacting with X-Road services. The managing authorities behind X-Road responded to this request by making the platform services also available via the REST mechanism .
