Scaling interoperability across levels of governance and states in Brazil

Secure data exchange is the backbone of any digital service provision – whether for citizens, employees, or businesses. But in the Federative Republic of Brazil, with twenty-six self-governing states and over 200 million people, how does such a massive digital transformation get started?

Seeking to achieve digital transformation at a national level, at large, Brazil faces unique challenges. The sheer size, diversity, and complexity of its administrative landscape require solutions that bridge gaps between different states while enabling secure, efficient, and standardized data exchange among them. It's not by chance that X-Road has been present in the country for over five years already. Known locally as X-Via, the secure data exchange platform is enhancing interoperability and transforming public service delivery in several states.

Developments have emerged during this time, demonstrating both the successes and challenges of scaling X-Via. As the landscape of digital governance in Brazil continues to evolve, here are state-of-the-art updates on how different states have adopted X-Via, the decisions that have been made, and the lessons learned along the way.

With Fernando Santos, Head of Product Development at X-Via.

State adoptions and evolving use cases

Mato Grosso: continuity and expansion

Mato Grosso remains a key player in Brazil’s X-Via journey. An early adopter of X-Road technology (2019), the state has made significant progress in expanding its digital capabilities.

A key step towards consolidating a commitment to digital governance was Mato Grosso’s government decree, establishing X-Via as the official interoperability solution for the entire state. A full legal endorsement that provided the foundation for further development and integration, allowing the state to scale its X-Road usage beyond internal government departments. In more recent times, the Justice Department also expressed interest in utilizing the data provided through X-Road – to streamline citizen notifications and enhance legal processes.

All the while, by pursuing interoperability at the municipal level, Mato Grosso is tackling a more complex layer of governance, where political and resource constraints present new challenges to expansion. Still, this effort underscores a maturing stage in the state’s digital governance strategy.

Piauí: a rapid onboarding

The state of Piauí has emerged as a new success story in the X-Via landscape. Prompted by a visit to Estonia, where the governor saw firsthand the benefits of X-Road, Piauí decided to speed up its adoption of the secure exchange layer. Within six months, Piauí not only implemented X-Via but also established a citizen web portal that integrates over ten different organizations.

The deployment was fast, reflecting an experienced and accelerated approach to implementation also on the side of the technology partner, X-Via – drawing on the lessons learned from earlier experiences in other states. What made things swifter in Piauí was a clear collaborative approach in development, where multiple departments worked together to deliver integrated services, proofing the flexibility and scalability of the X-Via platform.

Amapá: something went south

Not all states that have started, though, are continuing with their digital transformation plans. Amapá, one of the initial states to engage with X-Via, has discontinued its use due to changing political priorities and, consequentially, domain-specific budgetary constraints. Unlike the cases of Mato Grosso and Piauí, where strong political will have driven successful adoption, Amapá’s withdrawal highlights the vulnerabilities of digital transformation projects to shifts in government focus and financial reallocations.

Stages of readiness, federating across states

As Santos puts it, Mato Grosso and Piauí are both utilizing X-Via but find themselves in different stages of implementation. Mato Grosso is in a phase of continuity, refining existing services while expanding to new use cases. In contrast, Piauí is in the startup phase, rapidly implementing its services through X-Road. The state has already managed to create a citizen portal and keeps working to increase the number of services offered.

One key takeaway from these implementations, though, is that federating X-Road instances across states comes more straightforward than first implementing them at the municipal level. State governments can leverage their broader resources to develop and manage ‘communicating’ digital infrastructure, providing services to citizens through a more streamlined platform. For example, even though not fully federated today, Piauí and Mato Grosso are working together to establish X-Road Trust Federation to further strengthen interoperability between states.

From increased usage, new technical and governance challenges

As X-Via scales up across different levels of government and states, new technical and governance challenges have come to the forefront. In Mato Grosso, for instance, stakeholders have expressed concerns over the performance implications of X-Road’s security layers. The mandatory security processes introduce a “middle layer” that causes additional overhead compared to direct point-to-point integrations, prompting some stakeholders to question the necessity of adhering strictly to these standards. On the other hand, X-Road’s security layers provide unified security guarantees that are foundational for trustworthy data sharing.

The tradeoff between performance and security is a common topic in information technology. In this case, these concerns reflect though the ongoing effort between balancing security and efficiency in digital governance. On these concerns, instead of resorting to technical fixes, the focus has been on addressing them through dialogue, highlighting the importance of secure data exchange protocols in maintaining trust and compliance.

In addition to that, the increased usage of X-Via, particularly in states like Mato Grosso, has led to a surge in data and log generation. This growth presents new challenges around data management, analysis, and storage. It’s a shift from simply establishing an interoperable framework to optimizing its functionality and sustainability. Themes that will be critical as the platform continues to expand, requiring a clear data management strategy and continuous improvements in handling large volumes of data efficiently.

Security as the cornerstone of X-Via's value proposition

Despite concerns over potential performance impacts from security layers, security remains the defining feature of X-Via's value proposition in Brazil. The platform’s protocols, including encryption and digital certificates, are essential for ensuring the integrity and confidentiality of data exchanged between government entities. These mechanisms, within X-Road’s architecture, have been central in ensuring trust among stakeholders and compliance with data protection regulations in the country.

X-Via’s adoption continues to grow with security at its core. Government agencies, including sectors like the Justice Department in Mato Grosso, rely on the platform’s ability to protect sensitive information while facilitating efficient data exchange. As Fernando Santos points out, “X-Road’s encryption capabilities are a decisive factor in gaining the confidence of both administrators and users. Security, based on our experience, remains the main value proposition.”

Beyond encryption, X-Via’s security features also ensure transparency and accountability in data management. Secure and traceable data flows safeguard citizens' rights while favouring inter-agency collaboration.

As Brazil’s journey with X-Road continues, security will remain the standard-bearer of its success. By maintaining such measures, X-Via ensures that digital transformation initiatives are built on trust, resilience, and truly citizen-centric services.

From one domain to the whole government – X-Road takes its first steps in two Mexican states

Between 2020 and 2022, two Mexican states initiated workings to implement X-Road instances separately to better face population management challenges, and handle data generated during the COVID-19 pandemic. The experiences of Queretaro and Quintana Roo, Mexico, clearly show how adopting the secure data exchange layer can begin with addressing pressing needs. From there, with the necessary political and financial support to ensure the continuity of projects, avenues for further implementation are plenty.

Carlos Vargas, an expert at the e-Governance Academy, has worked on both projects for Estonian ICT company Roksnet during the implementation phases. “In terms of why X-Road was chosen, the platform’s open-source nature allowed more technical flexibility compared to proprietary solutions. It was seen as a way to foster greater interoperability across different government agencies,” he says.

In both states, Queretaro and Quintana Roo, X-Road demonstrated its benefits in enhancing governmental interoperability and service delivery. However, both instances also highlighted the vulnerabilities of such projects to changes in decision-making, as well as budgetary constraints.

From improved service delivery on social benefits, to better population management in critical phases of the pandemic, Vargas takes us through the steps that enabled interoperability in government agencies of these two Mexican states. 

X-Road in Querétaro

Background and Institutional Framework

In Querétaro, the drive to adopt X-Road stemmed from the state government's desire to establish a truly interoperable digital infrastructure. One of the models of reference was Estonia, which was in the spotlight thanks to the success of its own national X-Road instance. It was spring 2022 when the dialogue began between state authorities and Estonian partner Roksnet. In June of that same year, X-Road in Querétaro was already live.

“The initial talks about implementing X-Road started with the need to update and reorganise disparate systems that were congesting government operations.” Interoperability was a hot topic, but Querétaro opted to integrate an open-source solution into its digital strategy instead of relying on a proprietary platform. In fact, X-Road and its adoption fall within the policy directions of the state’s broader digital agenda, Querétaro Digital 2022-2027. The project is currently reported to have completed up to 50% of scheduled actions and tasks.

Needs and Challenges

The primary need for X-Road in Querétaro was to create a unified platform that could integrate services across various state agencies. Fostering interoperability, the ultimate goal was to facilitate more efficient public service delivery on par with better data governance. With real-time data exchange facilitated among different agencies, the solution deployed would overcome the obstacle of data silos, a configuration that had previously complicated service provision.

However, several challenges appeared along the way. Firstly, changes in decision-making – as interoperability is made a priority under one administration, it might not enjoy the same support as shifts in the composition of government occur.

In parallel, a technical challenge was represented by integrating X-Road with the existing IT infrastructure while ensuring compatibility across different government bodies. Also, as Vargas notes, “there was a learning curve associated with adopting the open-source platform. Simply because specific technical expertise was required, as well as ongoing management and customisation, that were not readily available within the local teams.

The Solution

Querétaro’s X-Road instance, live as of mid-2022, was successful in connecting different governmental bodies and improving data sharing. The initial applications were focused on social benefits, aiming to streamline and update databases related to public aid. In this domain, X-Road allowed for people’s data to stay current, accurate, and easily accessible.

With social benefits management as a testing ground, inter-agency collaboration effectively took place between relevant agencies of the state’s government. Looked at as a pilot, the project did achieve results in bridging units previously used to work in silos – highlighting the advantages of collaboration and coordination and leading to more effective government operations and decision-making processes.

“As the project progressed, the initial phases showed significant improvements in the speed and reliability of public service delivery through better data management,” Vargas highlights. To the point that the state government sought to extend the X-Road ecosystem to include more agencies and services.

But despite the ambitious start, obstacles lied ahead of further X-Road implementation in Querétaro. The latest updates expand on the ‘progress bar’ of the project – which at the moment remains in a beta phase, with its future dependent on securing the necessary political backing and funding to resume its development and reach full implementation. With a case study on social benefits administration that works, and promising possibilities for expansion to other policy domains under the state’s realm.

X-Road in Quintana Roo

Background and Institutional Framework

The implementation of X-Road in Quintana Roo was driven by the immediate need to manage public health data during the COVID-19 pandemic. While talks were already happening in 2019, the project was initiated in late 2020 – aiming to connect multiple municipalities to streamline data flow concerning health metrics, such as hospital admissions and the distribution of medical supplies.

Police-related systems fell under the scope of this project, too. Under the realm of the Ministry of Interior, they hold responsibility for the management and keeping of population data, which made them one of the main stakeholders engaged in turning the technology to serve the cause of countering the pandemic. Starting with this pressing necessity, X-Road was expected to then become the data exchange layer supporting the whole digital government of Quintana Roo.

Needs and Challenges

Quintana Roo’s government recognised, the hard way, the necessity for a platform that could offer real-time data exchange. To effectively manage the health crisis, X-Road was envisioned as a backbone for integrating various municipal databases to aid in rapid decision-making and resource allocation during the pandemic.

However, challenges ensued. From technical integration to legacy data privacy concerns and the training of personnel to manage and utilise the system effectively. As with Querétaro, the project in Quintana Roo required significant customisation to meet local needs and integration with existing digital infrastructure and diverse municipal systems.

“Cultural resistance to new technologies and organisational silos within government departments posed significant barriers to the full adoption of X-Road. Adding to the varying technical expertise among local staff, some of the tool’s complexity fell through the cracks of first contact with the technology,” Vargas explains. And let’s not forget – all of this was compounded by the high-stakes environment of a public health crisis.

The Solution

Agencies in Quintana Roo managed to overcome initial obstacles and rolled out Xacbé – the state’s own interoperability platform, powered by X-Road and named after an ancient word for Mayans’ road infrastructure. Like infrastructure connecting communities, the state achieved to create a network between relevant stakeholders to enhance service delivery.

Once adopted, Xacbé proved essential during the pandemic, enabling the efficient tracking of health data across municipalities and real-time decision-making. This integration facilitated a more cohesive response to the health crisis, improving the state's ability to manage resources and respond to public health needs quickly.

A coordinated pandemic response, however, did not prove enough to keep the ball rolling. Despite its initial success, the project faced sustainability issues post-pandemic. The challenges here are similar to those in Querétaro – changes in government priorities led to a reduction in support, and the project has not advanced beyond its initial scope, pausing for the moment its long-term viability.

As it often does, vision and politics will take forward digital transformation. “And the future of X-Road in these regions depends significantly on political will and funding. Continued support and understanding from upcoming administrations are vital for the sustainability of such digital infrastructure projects,” Vargas concludes.

How X-Road gets a taste of the big city life in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Argentina is not a new pin on the X-Road® global map. For some years already, the data exchange layer has been identified as a valuable tool to modernise public administration by changemakers in the region.

It wasn’t long ago that we were talking about the experience of the Province of Neuquén. Now, we move to the City of Buenos Aires, which is very populated and with a vast metropolitan area. Buenos Aires embarked on a transformative journey to digitise its public administration, leveraging the X-Road data exchange layer to enhance efficiency and service delivery.

A pivotal goal to attain for a municipal government that serves so many people. But not hard to reach, thanks to the work that many in the administration have already put into moving the process forward. Diego Fernández and Axel McCallum, respectively, Secretary of Innovation and Digital Transformation and Undersecretary of Administrative Innovation at the City Government, take us through past and future steps of this endeavour, illustrating how very large cities in Latin America benefit from adopting the solution.

Background and institutional framework

"X-Road in Buenos Aires represents the next step in the digital transformation of the city that we began almost 16 years ago. It marks our evolution from a government relying on paper-based processes and outdated legacy systems to one that is modern and digital-first,” Diego Fernández begins with.

Argentinians usually care to stress how massive the city is and how big it feels. And context, in this case, does matter indeed – Buenos Aires is a city-state akin to Washington DC or Mexico DF, with a significant population and a daily influx of commuters. Naturally, the need for an efficient and interoperable digital infrastructure is paramount. On par with that, the Buenos Aires City Government aimed to make public service delivery more efficient and user-friendly.

This quest led them to the X-Road data exchange layer, a tried-and-tested solution previously implemented in several countries, known for its open-source license and government-oriented design. Adopting X-Road, known locally as X-BA, marked a significant leap towards achieving a digital, interoperable, intelligent, and proactive government.

The initiative was underpinned by a solid legal and institutional framework, including decrees to establish an interoperability hub, mandating compliance for both public and private entities to ensure seamless data exchange across the city's vast digital landscape. Legal and policy adjustments were crucial, ensuring every stakeholder across the city's digital domain operated within a unified framework, eliminating data silos and enhancing cross-sector collaboration.

Initial explorations in 2021 evolved into active development and implementation by 2022, with the first use cases deployed by mid-2023. The project was governed under the realm of Diego Fernández, with the Secretariat of Innovation playing a crucial role. Each ministry and secretariat within the government had focal points responsible for administering their Security Servers and onboarding their services. Such a decentralised approach allowed individual departments to feel more empowered while maintaining overall coherence and alignment with the X-Road framework.

Needs and challenges

Buenos Aires faced several challenges in its digital transformation journey. The city's existing infrastructure comprised siloed systems that hindered efficient data exchange and service delivery. Additionally, the absence of a unified digital platform made it difficult for citizens to access services seamlessly. The city government also grappled with technical challenges, including integrating X-Road into an existing complex server network, including around 4000 servers and a sophisticated network security infrastructure.

Beyond the technological hurdles of integrating X-Road into an extensive and diverse IT infrastructure, the city faced significant organisational and cultural barriers. Training government staff and aligning various departments with the new digital strategy was vital. So, the initiative required not only digital innovation but also a cultural shift within the government and among the citizenry towards embracing digital solutions. Furthermore, the city had to address the challenge of data security, ensuring that the new interoperable system adhered to stringent standards to protect sensitive information.

Another layer of complexity was developing the human capital needed to support this transformation. The lack of local expertise in X-Road software meant investing in training and skill development. To this end, collaboration with international experts and being part of the global X-Road community became instrumental in navigating the intricacies of the mission ahead. "One of the strong points of X-Road is the quality of documentation and the availability of the community to support new users. This was crucial as we configured our system and overcame initial technical challenges,” McCallum notes.

The solution

Implementing X-Road in the City of Buenos Aires addressed several challenges by providing a secure, interoperable platform connecting diverse government systems, enabling efficient data exchange and streamlining service delivery. The initiative's success was marked by the rapid development and deployment of digital services, with plans for further expansion and integration, including increasing the number of services offered through X-Road and enhancing the digital platform for citizen engagement.

"By 2022, we were running the pilot program, installing the central components and Security Servers. It wasn't just about the technology stack; it was equally about the governance stack. 2023 instead was about liftoff, having our first use cases implemented and really starting to use X-Road on our platforms for administrative procedures, marking a significant point in our journey towards digital transformation,” McCallum explains.

The solution, X-BA, does mark a new era of digital governance in Buenos Aires. The city not only streamlined data exchange across government departments but also significantly enhanced the citizens’ service experience. Services that once required much-loathed paperwork could now be accessed digitally, reducing wait times and improving accessibility. “For example, enrolling a child in kindergarten required parents to provide a vaccination certificate, which was a cumbersome process. We saw X-Road as a solution that could streamline such processes and make the infrastructure more efficient,” Fernández points out. Birth certificate issuance, too, is a notable example of improved access, availability, and delivery of public services.

Scaling the solution involves ambitious plans. By mid-2023, the government had introduced several services through X-Road, aiming to increase this number significantly by the end of 2024. By then, the City of Buenos Aires seeks to have a significant portion of its government services digitised and 30% of government services running on X-Road, reflecting a substantial shift towards digital service delivery. Additionally, the city government plans to integrate more private sector services into the X-Road ecosystem and explore federated systems with other provinces for broader data interoperability.

Making data flow across the sea with X-Road in the Åland Islands

There’s more to the Åland Islands than soft tones and crisp, still sunsets – and that’s digitalisation. But while digital developments are still far from competing with local, regional beauty, the most recent advancements in the islands’ public administration are definitely worth noting.

Åland, an autonomous region of Finland, embarked on a journey to enhance public administration through digitalisation. We caught up with Jani Sjölund, Director of IT at the Government of Åland, to hear how X-Road became the choice to the need for a robust data exchange solution, improving interoperability and citizen services.

Background and institutional framework

The journey towards utilising X-Road in Åland commenced with a vision to enhance data interoperability across government agencies and improve citizen services.

Recognising X-Road's potential based on its success in Estonia, Finland, and other Nordic countries, Åland sought to integrate this solution into its digital infrastructure, leveraging the support and expertise of the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) and the Digital and Population Data Services Agency in Finland (DVV). Early discussions revealed the potential for using X-Road not just as a technical solution but as a catalyst for broader digital transformation within Åland's government operations.

As Jani Sjölund stepped into his role, having joined as the director of IT, he pinpointed enhanced data interoperability across Åland’s public sector as a cornerstone of their digital strategy. This vision was rooted in the broader EU directives emphasising the immediate task of strengthening information security. In parallel, a data exchange platform naturally set out to become a key component to achieving digital agility within the public administration.

The engagement with the Finnish Digital and Population Data Services Agency (DVV) was a strategic move designed to leverage their extensive experience with X-Road and ensure a foundation for robust data exchange capabilities within Åland.

“After I joined, one of my first actions was organising workshops with Finland's DVV. These sessions were instrumental in our decision to integrate with Finland's X-Road ecosystem, Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer, rather than creating a separate ecosystem for Åland. The decision to integrate with Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer acknowledges the practical benefits of such a connection. This approach allows Åland to maintain its autonomous digital governance while still benefiting from the established, secure, and efficient infrastructure of Finland's national data ecosystem​​,” Sjölund explains.

Needs and challenges

Åland's digital agenda, influenced by both local governance and the Finnish government, identified the need for a platform that could facilitate seamless data exchange between different government agencies and improve citizen access to services.

"Upon joining the government as the IT director, I was tasked with enhancing our information security and establishing a data exchange platform. We identified the need for interoperability and a citizen portal, already outlined in our digital agenda,” Sjölund says. But a primary challenge to Åland on this path was the fragmentation within its public administration. Various agencies operated in isolation, creating inefficiencies in data exchange and service delivery.

Additionally, the region grappled with the logistical and economic constraints of bringing all municipalities, especially the smaller ones with limited resources, onboard with the X-Road implementation.

“Integrating smaller municipalities and agencies, some with minimal IT resources, into the X-Road ecosystem poses a significant challenge. With Åland comprising 16 municipalities of varying sizes, ensuring that all can participate in and benefit from X-Road is a complex task. But our focus was from the beginning on finding solutions that enable even the smallest communities to offer e-services through X-Road, ensuring equitable digital access across the islands,” Sjölund points out.

The solution

The solution involved integrating with Finland's existing infrastructure while developing and retaining the administrative autonomy Åland enjoys. This strategy facilitated a streamlined administrative process and allowed Åland to benefit from Finland's technical expertise and established processes. The series of workshops Sjölund engaged in, with key stakeholders including DVV and CSC – the IT Center for Science in Finland, laid the groundwork for this integration. In this way, leveraging Finland's X-Road framework, Åland aimed to improve service provision for its citizens, enabling 24/7 access to digital services without requiring physical presence or paperwork.

“One significant advantage of this collaboration is that Åland can use Finland's identification systems for its digital services. This means citizens accessing Åland's portal can use the Suomi.fi e-Identification service, simplifying access and avoiding the need for Åland to develop a separate system for that,” Sjölund explains.

Pragmatism and collaboration, then, in the effort to enhance digital governance in Åland – addressing the specific challenges posed by its autonomy and limited resources. All pairs well with the anticipated increase in data exchange with Finland and Sweden: improved interoperability among local agencies does indeed position Åland to significantly enhance its public service delivery and participate in the benefits of cross-border data exchange between its two neighbouring countries.

“Following our workshops, we tasked our IT service provider with setting up Security Servers, marking a significant step towards operationalising X-Road in Åland. This phase was crucial for developing the competencies needed to manage and utilise the X-Road system effectively. Parallel to the technical setup, we focused on developing e-services, starting with foundational services like the right of domicile registry. These efforts aimed at ensuring that once the technical infrastructure was in place, there would be valuable services ready for our citizens,” Sjölund highlights.

The implementation of X-Road, all in all, is more than just a technical upgrade; it’s about transforming how services are delivered to citizens. By facilitating seamless data exchange and enhancing security, X-Road in Åland allows the local public administration to improve service levels dramatically. “Our goal is to ensure that citizens can access services anywhere, anytime, without the requirement for physical presence or adherence to office hours. It’s what took us to commit to X-Road as a fitting technical enabler, and stresses its potential to elevate Åland's overall digital landscape,” Sjölund concludes.

CamDX is Cambodia’s national data exchange solution – and it’s based on X-Road®

After touching land in Japan for a private sector use case, X-Road is now being utilised also in East Asia’s mainland – precisely, in the Southeast of the continent. Public administration in Cambodia is currently deploying the open-source data exchange layer to bridge silos between ministries and government agencies.

This comes at the hand mostly from one person with his team: Dr Nguonly Taing, Executive Director at the Techo Startup Center. Car metaphors run fast in this case study, as Dr. Taing takes us through the process of getting to know and utilising X-Road in the Cambodian instance.

CamDX is a “superhighway”, he says. Beginnings, framework development, roll-out – a journey into how the Southeast Asian country built “digital roads” between information systems and stakeholders, significantly improving citizens’ experience in public service access and usage.

Background and institutional framework

The Techo Startup Center, under the realm of the national Ministry of Economy and Finance, acts as a pivot, facilitating agreements and collaborations across various ministries and sectors on digital topics. Like in many other countries, it is an entity that underscores public commitment to driving national digital transformation. It was logical, then, that the development and management of an interoperability layer for data exchange would fall among its prerogatives and priorities.

However, the turning point in the roll-out of such a platform was Dr Taing's visit to Estonia in June 2019. It inspired adopting a data exchange layer similar to the Estonian X-Road instance X-tee, capable of unifying and securing the exchange of data across government agencies to facilitate business operations​​​​.

“During our extensive training in Estonia, we recognized the potential of adopting X-Road to address our challenges with system fragmentation. Given its scalability and security, proven by Estonia and Finland, X-Road was the optimal solution for Cambodia. Although we lacked certain components like public key infrastructure and a single sign-on system, we were determined to develop these independently, reinforcing our commitment to building a resilient digital ecosystem,” Dr Taing explains.

Since then, the center has been crucial in forging agreements and collaborations across different government agencies and the private sector. By enabling these connections, Cambodia Data eXchange (CamDX) is the backbone for a more integrated and efficient digital government ecosystem, addressing the fragmentation that previously characterised the Cambodian public administration​​​​. Dr Taing highlighted the importance of regulatory support in enabling these collaborations, particularly through MOUs that formalise participation in the CamDX ecosystem​​​​.

Needs and challenges

CamDX, in fact, originated from recognising the need to enhance Cambodia's overall competitiveness in providing public services for businesses. The extensive waiting times required for obtaining various licenses and clearances from multiple ministries were identified as significant barriers to improving business competitiveness within the country. These waiting times could extend from 30 to 60 working days.

For reference, the list of ministries and agencies businesses were required to interact with included the Ministry of Commerce, the Department of Taxation under the Ministry of Economy and Finance, and the Ministry of Labor and Vocational Training. Each of these operated in a siloed manner​​.

Within such an assessment, CamDX's creation had to fully align with Cambodia's broader digital governance and economic policies. Dr Taing emphasised the necessity of data exchange, eKYC (Electronic Know Your Customer), and digital identity systems as foundational elements for implementing these policies effectively. CamDX is the infrastructure facilitating these components, albeit with ongoing efforts to fully realise a comprehensive digital identity framework within the country​​. Additionally, the involvement of the Ministry of Interior allowed for the integration of the national ID system, enhancing identity verification processes essential for both public and private sectors​​​​.

The solution

In 2020, Cambodia deployed the open-source X-Road code, leading to the creation of CamDX. This move was not about establishing mere technical integrations, but fostering a community specific to Cambodia, encompassing both public and private sectors locally​​.

Dr Taing likens CamDX to a "superhighway," where data flows securely and efficiently between entities – a bit like cars travelling from place to place along a highway. “Its design ensures security through encryption, digital signing, and timestamping for each transaction. Notably, the content of the data exchanged remains private, as only metadata is accessible to the operator of CamDX. This feature, alongside support for various connectivity options such as VPN or dedicated lines, caters to diverse security preferences among the ministries and other entities involved. It highlights CamDX's robustness and flexibility, making it a cornerstone of our digital infrastructure,” Dr Taing says.

The online business registration platform was one of the first significant services CamDX enabled. With CamDX, all relevant processes and necessary steps were consolidated into a single portal where citizens could file applications and pay fees online, and the data would be distributed via CamDX to the respective ministries for approval​​. “Currently, CamDX enables around 20 services online, signifying just the beginning of its capabilities. Last month, CamDX processed 1 million transaction requests for open eKYC services alone, allowing banks and MFIs to utilise a unified data source,” Dr Taing highlights.

Through the data exchange layer, Cambodia is committed to adopting global best practices in technology for national benefit, overcoming infrastructure and trust barriers, and paving the way for a more interconnected and efficient digital future. Further expansion is among the next steps. “Integrating the private sector, especially banks, into CamDX presented unique challenges, notably due to their strict security standards. However, CamDX successfully passed all tests, demonstrating its compatibility with both open-source and enterprise-level IT infrastructures. It’s an achievement that spotlights our system's adaptability but also the importance of having a robust monitoring system to ensure seamless and secure data exchanges across all sectors.”

In November2022, CamDX was announced as the winner of the ‘open source adaptation of the year’ award in a competition co-sponsored by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Amazon Web Service Institute, and the Global Network for Apolitical Government. 

Launching citizen-oriented digital services in Colombia

Colombia is about to reach a notable milestone in its digital transformation, with the launch of its first citizen-oriented digital public services. Over the past twenty years, the country has become one of the regional leaders in e-government. But to become truly digital, Colombia has had to move beyond the digital replication of analogue processes towards a more user-driven approach to meet its citizens' needs.

The upcoming launch of the first citizen-oriented digital services represents a monumental step towards this goal. Gerardo Cubides Silva, IT Project Manager at the National Digital Agency of Colombia, tells us about X-Road's role in these broader digitalisation efforts, highlighting some of the challenges they had to overcome over the past few years. 

BACKGROUND AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

The government of Colombia recognised the value of emerging technologies already in the early 2000s. The first steps towards digitalisation consisted of drawing up the national Connectivity Agenda and Online Government Strategy to build a more efficient and participative state through the implementation of ICTs (OECD, 2017). 

According to an OECD report from 2018, the government's early efforts set out well-defined strategic directions and established a sound regulatory framework conducive to digital development. But despite this shared direction, public institutions moved forward in silos while lacking a citizen-centred approach. The Digital Citizen Services initiative (Servicios Ciudadanos Digitales) aims to address this gap. 

"In Colombia, the implementation of X-Road is a part of the government's long-term endeavour of digital transformation," Gerardo Silva notes, locating the role of X-Road within broader strategies. In May 2020, these efforts were reaffirmed by Decree 620/2020. Issued by the national government through the Ministry of Information Technology and Communications, the decree establishes the regulatory foundation for the roll-out and use of the tools under the Digital Citizen Services model.

NEEDS AND CHALLENGES

Although Decree 620/2020 represents one of the most recent legislative developments, the implementation of X-Road already started a few years ago. As interoperability falls under the National Digital Agency's competence, in 2018 the entity was responsible for an evaluation process of three interoperability technologies.

In the eyes of Colombia's public sector, Silva explains that X-Road was the best fit for their need to fulfil four main criteria:

1.     Architecture – in terms of usability, availability and reliability;

2.     Security and trust;

3.     Performance in terms of scalability;

4.     Operation in terms of support, maintenance and licensing.

But finding the right technology is just a prerequisite for successful implementation. Since 2018, the National Digital Agency has been working on overcoming a number of challenges that have emerged in the actual process of X-Road implementation. "The challenges that we encountered can be divided into four areas," Silva observes.

"First, we had to embark on a learning curve to really grasp how the X-Road platform works before integrating it into our systems," Silva explains. "Once we had laid this foundation for ourselves, the second challenge was figuring out how to pitch the technology to other public entities and encourage its adoption across the sector," he continues. 

Against the background of this ongoing communication, the third challenge emerged with Colombia'scertification authority, ONAC. "The previous model of digital certificates required us to share user data, such as the username and password, in order to consume the trust services. As X-Road does not support this, we had to modify the system to meet Colombia’s national security requirements," Silva outlines.

The final and ongoing challenge lies in integrating different public sector information systems and services with the platform. "This requires a notable degree of development on the part of all the public entities themselves, so this endeavour takes some time and still continues," Silva concludes.

THE SOLUTION

Colombia's e-government model consists of three vital components: digital authentication, the Digital Citizen Folder, and interoperability. "The Digital Folder enables citizens to file and access digital documents – such as birth certificates, disciplinary records or proof of residence – for their interactions with public institutions," Silva explains. Reliability and security are ensured by the electronic authentication system and the X-Road secure data exchange platform.

But as the initial hurdles have been successfully overcome, the first digital services in the Digital Citizen Folder are ready to be launched in spring 2021. "We are first planning to launch ten procedures for the citizens, including the validation of education documents for studying abroad as well as the consultation of cadastre certificates and proof of residence. Additional services are to be added in the near future," Silva states.

Within the Digital Citizen Services model, X-Road plays a crucial role in ensuring secure and seamless data exchange between different public entities for validating citizen information. In the Colombian context, X-Road meets all the basic requirements outlined and represents an opportunity to get past the previous siloed network and make public entities interact. Colombia's experience illuminates how X-Road can support the harmonisation of public sector operations, forming the foundation for citizen-oriented digital services and the consolidation of a truly digital government.

X-Road® as a Digital Public Good – enabling digital transformation in emerging countries

The COVID-19 crisis has highlighted pre-existing global inequities and generated new challenges, from public health management to economic recovery. A good lesson learned, now more than ever, is that digital technology can support development and resilience in crisis mode and outside of it. As a result, digital transformation has accelerated everywhere. 

When it comes to low- and middle-income countries (LMICs), however, the lack of financial and human resources can become a significant obstacle toward successful digitalisation and sustainable development. In response, institutions like the World Bank and the Digital Public Goods Alliance (DPGA) have started facilitating the discovery and implementation of open-source software and other openly available digital assets under the concept of digital public goods (DPGs). 

Within these efforts, X-Road® has recently been listed in the DPG Registry and recognised by the World Bankas a notable open-source tool for digital development in resource-constrained environments. We spoke to stakeholders from the World Bank and the DPGA to find out the value they see in X-Road as a DPG and how it can meet the needs of LMICs such as Madagascar – a notable case featured in this post.

BACKGROUND AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

Founded in 2019, the DPGA has the mission to accelerate the attainment of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) in LMICs, specifically by facilitating the discovery, development, use of and investment in DPGs. Among their wide-reaching activities, the DPGA has focused on setting an open DPG standard and created the DPG Registry. 

Lucy Harris, DPGA Co-Lead, outlines that according to the alliance’s definition, DPGs: 

1. Are open-source assets (software, data, AI models, standards, and content) that adhere to privacy and other applicable laws;

2. That do no harm;

3. And that help attain SDGs.

This three-component definition further breaks down into nine indicators captured in the open DPG standard. “When it comes to the DPG Registry, anyone can nominate a project on our website,” Harris explains. “We then review the nominations against the DPG standard. If approved, they go into the registry, with a stamp that certifies them as DPGs,” she adds. 

Although entry into the registry typically happens via direct nomination, X-Road appeared on the DPGA’s radar through a community of practice. “We bring together experts in certain areas to identify DPGs that are hyper-relevant to a timely development need,” Harris explains. “This specific group focused on financial inclusion at scale, which comes down to digital public infrastructure,” she continues. 

“Looking for projects that sit at this intersection of DPGs related to financial inclusion that were also digital public infrastructures, we came across X-Road,” Harris concludes.

NEEDS AND CHALLENGES

The mandate of the DPGA focuses on the digital development needs of LMICs. Regarding the donors and countries with whom they interact, Harris notes increasing interest in building digital infrastructure on open-source. 

Indeed, one such example can be found in the World Bank’s support of the digital transformation of Madagascar. The latter has been working on X-Road implementation in their public sector for the past few years and is fully committed to building their digital infrastructure with DPGs. “In emerging countries, like Madagascar, we like this philosophy and mindset because we do not have the financial means to afford proprietary solutions,” shares Tahina Razafindramalo, Chief Digital Officer at the Digital Governance Unit of Madagascar (Unité de Gouvernance Digitale).

The question of financial resources is not only relevant during the short-term implementation, but also for the long-term sustainability of the digital infrastructure that is being built. This is primarily due to the long-term risks of vendor lock-in when relying on proprietary solutions – as donor support is limited to a specified timeframe, the question of what’s next needs to be built into the long-term strategy from the start. 

THE SOLUTION

The DPGA sees open-source solutions, such as X-Road, as more accessible, preventing vendor lock-in, facilitating innovation, and helping governments retain their sovereignty.

Representatives from Madagascar and the World Bank echo these value points. “The fact that X-Road is open-source and accessible means that it is easy for us to build a sustainable solution,” Razafindramalo highlights. “With the World Bank, we have already set up a proof of concept regarding 2 or 3 ministries, so we have already seen how easy it is to onboard everyone to the project,” he adds.

Considering the higher long-term costs of maintaining proprietary solutions, DPGs – such as X-Road – boast one of the most significant advantages of supporting sustainable and affordable development, especially in LMICs. “With the help of our donors, we can leverage a project for a specific time period to implement the best-in-class technology and solution, but after that, we must finance it internally from the government,” Razafindramalo underlines.

On top of accessibility and sustainability, Hajarivony Andriamarofara, World Bank Consultant, adds simplicity to the list of benefits that X-Road has as a DPG. “Rollout is possible with very minimal support,” Andriamarofara notes. To the extent that support is needed, the X-Road Community and other stakeholders with relevant experience are available to provide it. So can do, additionally, those companies listed as X-Road Technology Partners, in the form of commercial support. “Even if it is a solution that comes from the far North of Europe, it is relatively easy to find a solution with the X-Road Community to any obstacles we may face,” he concludes. 

The benefits outlined by the World Bank and Madagascar representatives align with what the DPGA sees in X-Road. “For us, X-Road ticked all the boxes and was approved both as a DPG and as relevant digital public infrastructure. In other words, having this cross-sectoral impact, being an interoperable solution that people are building on top of and building with,” Lucy Harris underlines. 

For countries now drafting or revisiting their digital transformation strategies, selecting the proper solutions will determine their development path for years to come. The DPGA and World Bank view X-Road as an affordable and sustainable tool to advance digitalisation across the world and create widespread access to services, especially in LMICs.

Integrity and interoperability – the perfect match for Argentina's public service

To many, X-Road® is a synonym of interoperability. National governments, ministries and public agencies have looked at the platform as a viable option to solve their data exchange problems between institutions. However, some might regard security as the main benefit of the technology. 

Of course, the two things go hand in hand, and that's what gives the X-Road technology its unique appeal. But while interoperability itself wasn't all that new in the Argentinian province of Neuquén, security in data exchange is what the public sector was after. 

Gustavo Giorgetti, engineer and serial innovator with his firm ThinkNet, is the person in charge of interoperability projects in the province. With him and his son Lucas, we delved deeper into what drives the interest in X-Road on that side of the world. Because if first was the Province of Neuquén, a nationwide project might soon follow.

Background and institutional framework

Not many stories begin with "It all started on a trip to Estonia" – but this is one of those. As a concept, interoperability had already been lingering among governance experts and engineers in the Argentinian province of Neuquén. In practice, it was a long time coming.

Decisive, to that end, was a trip to Estonia organized by the World Bank which engineer Gustavo Giorgetti participated in. "I had been thinking about interoperability as a way to connect different, siloed government organizations back home in Argentina, but that study trip to Estonia in 2007 was the chance to see it put to work. That experience, the Estonian real-life example, gave us the possibility to set it as a viable goal in Neuquén," Giorgetti says.

The e-government journey of the Province of Neuquén started around that time, in 2008. "Strong political will was necessary, back then, to make the project move its first steps. This support came from engineer Rodolfo Esteban Lafitte, at the time Secretary of Public Service, with a directive that kicked off the roll-out of the first components in our 'Integrabilidad' environment," Giorgetti explains.

Let's focus for a moment on the name. The term indicates a mix between interoperability and integration of digital services in it, setting the two as core prerequisites for a functional ecosystem to exchange information between public agencies. From the Estonian example, the platform in Neuquén borrowed the distributed characteristics of the model and the once-only approach, formalized in a dedicated law on de-bureaucratization in 2012 (Ley N°2819, here in Spanish).

"Mirroring what had been done in Estonia, and drawing inspiration from that experience, we created our interoperability ecosystem. Named 'Integrabilidad', it has been active in Neuquén since 2010," Giorgetti proudly says. But the release of X-Road as an open-source technology under MIT license in 2015-2016 has offered the Province of Neuquén an opportunity to further improve the previously created ecosystem.

Needs and challenges

However, as in all processes on innovation, technology is not the only element that makes them a success. It is also a matter of culture, readiness to adopt new solutions, and working methods. These subjects have posed some challenges along the way, pushing for a reorganization of the processes moving the gears of the public administration in Neuquén.

"For what concerns the cultural aspect, Estonia had quite an advantage in that sense – the fact that pretty much there was little legacy on that. In our case, the cultural change within the public administration triggered by that initial political will, and the methodologies elaborated, were crucial to making Integrabilidad work," Giorgetti warns. "Some might think that it's just a matter of technology, but interoperability implies a reshaping of the processes and the waysto deliver public services," he continues.

Ultimately, the need was to adapt the implementation of the model in mind to a tendency to work on a case-by-case basis. "Change, technological and cultural, finds more favourable ground to take place in situations of emergency. By treating such situations or sudden issues with solutions that would take us closer to the goal we had set, it was possible to gradually deploy the distributed ecosystem we wanted to achieve," Giorgetti explains.

The solution

With the release of the source code of X-Road in 2015-2016, the public administration of Neuquén saw the chance to bring to Integrabilidad a missing feature – security. Because, according to Giorgetti, "the perfect tool for interoperability answers both technological and legal necessities. X-Road is cryptography on the internet, security on the internet."

This is where the primary business value lied for Neuquén to migrate to X-Road from its originally implemented clone. The main difference between the two platforms is cryptography, security, and the legal framework that X-Road guarantees through time-stamping and the digital signature of messages.

In 2017, Neuquén started to replace its interoperability platform with X-Road – first with the help of Riho Oks. Today, ‘Integrabilidad con X-Road’ is the platform for secure data exchange that connects up to 29 information systems and back offices of service providers in the public sector of Neuquén. The Banco Provincia del Neuquén (bank) then joined in 2019, and private healthcare providers followed in 2020 amid the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.

"The security layer offered by X-Road has been a strong argument in facilitating the spread of the platform among both public and private actors," Giorgetti says. The public can check here key statistics and resources on the functioning of the platform.

But the plan is now to take ‘Integrabilidad con X-Road’ to a higher level of governance, beyond the borders of the province. It is underway a project for the integrabilidad of data and services, under the management of the Federal Council of the Public Service and the National Secretariat of Public Innovation, aiming to address two key objectives:

1.     Surveying the interoperability and digitalization capabilities of all provinces to enhance cooperation and innovation within and among them;

2.     Building a model of reference on integrabilidad, to deploy a digital ecosystem across provinces based on the principles of that in Neuquén.

Work is progressing, but it seems that ‘Integrabilidad con X-Road’ has already achieved a significant milestone – setting an example in Argentina for the way processes, data, and services are organized in a local public administration. Can it set the record also as a major bottom-up model for the nationwide exercise of interoperability? In Europe, too, if successful, there could be lessons to learn from Latin America.

Estonia and Finland launch automated data exchange between population registers

In September 2020, cross-border interoperability between Estonia and Finland took another step further with the launch of automated data exchange between the countries’ national population registers. With the support of X-Road, the solution replaces the previous batch data processing and improves information accuracy and security.

Automating the exchange of population data is the third cross-border interoperability link in place between Estonia and Finland, after connecting the countries’ business registers and tax boards in 2019.

Together with Timo Salovaara, Deputy Director General at the Finnish Digital Agency (DVV), we outline the main features of the cooperation and solution at hand.

BACKGROUND AND INSTITUTIONAL FRAMEWORK

The exchange of population data between Finland and Estonia dates back to the signing of a collaboration agreement between the countries’ population register authorities in 2005. The document provided a framework for the exchange of details of citizens living in the other country, when and where necessary. Relevant subjects cover the following:

1)    Deaths

2)    Name changes

3)    Changes of address

4)    Information on their dependent children.

The collaboration created a framework that has enabled batch-based data exchange between Finland and Estonia for almost 15 years, with data being requested and provided on average once a year.

The increasing digitalization of the Finnish population register, and the national data exchange layer, have now led to a partial institutional overlap. Automating the existing collaboration seemed, logically, the next step. “The DVV is the owner of the population register in Finland and, since 2014, we also own the national X-Road infrastructure – the Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer,” Salovaara explains. “So, with the existing data exchange framework that we have in place with Estonia, these two things meet here,” he observes. 

The technical foundation for cross-border interoperability between Estonia and Finland was established in 2018 with the federation of the two countries’ national X-Road. While connecting the national ecosystems paved the way for an array of technical possibilities, their development and implementation have been dependent on resolving legal intricacies. “Despite this, we decided to use X-Road to update the information exchange system from 2005, as we already had the legal framework in place,” Salovaara states. 

NEEDS AND CHALLENGES

Data exchange automation responds to the need for greater data accuracy and a decreased manual workload – all while maintaining and improving underlying security. 

“Previously, we had a facility that allowed uploading a file into a system, which could be accessed by the Estonian Ministry of Interior,” Salovaara says about the process in place since 2005. “Our Estonian colleagues could log into the service, access the file prepared by us and then update their records in the population register based on that. While all of this was secure and audited, it was not as practical and required a lot of effort. 

The new automated solution secures the data exchange, ensuring improved maintenance of the entire system at the same time. 

“For example, we have a similar arrangement with the Nordic countries concerning population data exchange,” Salovaara brings forth. “But we are using legacy systems from the beginning of the century. When updating information security protocols, we need to wait until the last country is ready to make the updates before completing the process,” he continues. With a standardized interoperability solution, such as X-Road, the system updates are conducted faster and more securely. 

Besides the legal boundaries set by the original collaboration agreement from 2005, the technical implementation of the solution did not see any significant challenges. “We can say that technology is no longer the barrier, especially in this case where both parties already had experience with X-Road infrastructure,” Salovaara observes. “This means we can focus more on the substance and needs of the specific use case, as well as the legal details surrounding new types of data exchange,” he says. 

THE SOLUTION

X-Road has now automated the data transfer between the population registers of Estonia and Finland, improving information accuracy and timeliness as well as increasing the efficiency and security of the data exchange process.

The solution breathes new life into this long-standing collaboration. Population authorities can now easily access up-to-date information on their citizens whenever necessary; e.g. when preparing for national elections. While the legal framework established by the 2005 agreement currently limits the type of information that can be mutually accessed, the solution is a significant stepping stone to expanding the scope of data exchange in the future. 

Further negotiations are ongoing between Estonia and Finland, but a similar technical solution between population registers also has significant potential beyond the Baltic Sea region. With the free movement of people in Europe, there would, for example, be a need to standardize data exchange between EU member states. 

“Currently, if someone moves to Finland, we verify their identity by using their passport and verify their family relations with legalized paper certificates given by the authorities of their country of origin,” Salovaara explains, bringing up a typical case. “But requesting and providing these documents takes time – from both the public authorities and the citizens – and at least theoretically, the risk of forged paper documents remains. To have the most accurate data at all times, this information could be requested directly from other countries’ population registers. If these kinds of arrangements can be made, facilities like the X-Road would be very useful in the technical implementation of the data exchange!”

Automating data transfer between the population registers of Estonia and Finland serves as another example of how X-Road can simplify and enhance international collaboration, for both citizens and the state. 

First steps towards interoperability in the public sector of El Salvador

It is well known, by now, that two pillars of any digital transformation venture in the public sector are electronic identification and interoperability. These can be implemented regardless of the level of digital maturity of a country’s government. But in practice, they serve no less as the starting point and prerequisites for any further advancement in this field.

El Salvador, in Central America, is a perfect example of that. The public administration of the country faces numerous challenges, from data collection to data quality and exchange. But a small team led by Eric Ramírez within the Secretariat of Innovation at the government of El Salvador has identified in X-Road a suitable tool to pilot secure data exchange over the Internet

Speaking to him, we found out how their platform Tenoli can help the state provide services more efficiently – with two practical examples in population management and ease of doing business.

Background and institutional framework

El Salvador’s first steps towards a more digital public sector started in 2016 when the government formed a dedicated unit – the Dirección de Gobierno Electrónico. In 2019, then, the new administration created an Innovation Secretariat which kept the existing e-government unit, and created additional teams to support the modernization of government.

Naturally, such a move indicated a clear intention to look into best practices worldwide and options to trigger digitalization in the country’s administration. “The timing was right as, between 2015 and 2016, the source code of X-Road had been published under MIT free software license. That was the chance to customize the technology and start implementing it in El Salvador – although, with NIIS not existing yet, this proved more complicated than it currently is today”, Ramírez says.

In the meantime, the national legal framework was adapting to facilitate the take-up of the technology. The Law on Administrative Procedures (2018) set out principles for a once-only approach to data collection. Then, the Electronic Signature Act (2016) formalized the validity and usage of electronic signatures in the country. More recently, relevant official regulation (2019) established requisites, rules, and proceedings in the matters of data exchange between government agencies.

Needs and challenges

From an institutional perspective, El Salvador has been gearing up for a push towards increased digitalization in the public sector. But the challenges to tackle have been, and still are, many. It is one of those cases where it is hard to pinpoint specific needs to address, because targets pertain to the modernization of public administration practices as a whole, cross-agency.

“First of all, human resources to drive such transformation are quite limited at the moment. Government agencies need to allocate resources to support modernization efforts. At the same time, the necessary cultural change to shift from using paper, or to replace costly point-to-point leased lines, also has to be widespread,” Ramírez warns. Many data exchanges between government information systems are currently happening over private leased channels. “But indeed, there are already more cost-effective solutions available,” he highlights.

Consequently, it becomes more complicated to turn a high-level vision on digitalization into practice. Not because this hasn’t been set out – El Salvador has an ambitious Digital Agenda, in compliance with the Sustainable Development Goals of the United Nations. However, plans of digitalization also clash with other pressing needs such as building the necessary infrastructure to foster the general take-up of digital solutions.

The solution

To mark the first steps towards increased use of digital technologies in the public administration, El Salvador opted for putting in place a functioning data exchange layer. Using the free and open-source X-Road as a building block, the government of El Salvador has come to create Tenoli. Meaning ‘bridge’ in the local Nahuatl language, Tenoli is a platform – live since January 2017 – enabling public sector agencies to exchange information over the Internet.

Interest in the X-Road technology manifested basically as soon as the Dirección de Gobierno Electrónico was created. In 2017, one year later, data was already being exchanged through the layer between selected public agencies. “Beyond the possibility to adopt a more cost-effective solution, the business value we see lies in the way information exchange is standardized and secured. By now, we have managed to pilot and consistently run services in population management and business registration,” Ramírez explains.

So far, the most significant landmark has been indeed the birth registration service. This is particularly salient in a country where an average of 300 babies are born per day. Still, none of them institutionally exists until parents decide to carry out the paperwork for official registration at a municipal office. Or, much later in life, until a national ID card is given by the time these new-borns are old enough to vote.

“Connecting information systems between the Ministry of Health and the Population Registry was a no-brainer at that point. So, we searched for options that would allow us to do things as a private company would, while adopting a tech solution that would also be appropriately secured,” Ramírez says. Since 2017, when a baby is born, data from hospitals reaches the Population Registry digitally. Besides, the National Statistical Office makes use of this information too, for purposes of population census. In this way, such data gives public agencies the possibility to cross-check with municipalities information about newly recorded births.

Furthermore, data is also exchanged between the Ministry of Economics and a consortium of public partners to provide a tax ID to registered businesses-to-be. With that respect, the monthly average in the past year has been of 619 registrations. But at the moment, apart from the relevant portal MiEmpresa.gob.sv, no other services are being provided to citizens in the one-stop-shop fashion that the X-Road technology can favour. The room for improvement, though, with a widespread change of heart in institutional culture, can be massive.

“Some still use private leased lines to exchange data, but our work is also to make more and more public agencies understand that Tenoli is cheaper, secure, and most of all, scalable. However, to increase the outreach of the platform, a core value change is necessary. Because the solutions, tech-wise, are not complex or difficult to implement. What makes them work, also in our case, is cooperation, trust in institutions and the public administration. Where that fails, further advancements are just not possible,” Ramírez concludes.

PlanetCross brings secure data exchange to the Japanese energy sector

Readers and X-Road® technology enthusiasts around the globe may have spotted a pattern by now – use cases of the data exchange layer prominently feature applications in the public sector. This is true to a certain extent, as X-Road is notably the backbone of Estonia’s digital public services. But private sector companies are increasingly considering taking up the technology, even far beyond the borders of Estonia.

In Japan, X-Road is now enabling efficient information exchange of clients’ data in the energy sector. National energy operator Nippon Gas Co., LTD (hereinafter Nichigas), partnering with tech startup Planetway, is using a proprietary product based on the X-Road data exchange layer to bridge back-office IT gaps between its subsidiary companies. Improving processing time of clients’ inquiries, Nichigas is already a case study of result-based applications of X-Road for the Japanese private sector.

Raul Allikivi, Chief Relations Officer at Planetway, and Yuki Matsuda, Executive Officer for the IT Department at Nichigas, introduce us to this shining example of how the technology can dramatically benefit operational efficiencyin private sector organizations everywhere.

Background and institutional framework

A series of reforms throughout the past five years has changed the configuration of the Japanese energy market. Since 2016, the progressive liberalization has given companies the possibility to change their organizational setting, and the way energy is distributed to customers nationwide. “For what concerns electricity, in that same year, the three largest companies on the market divided their operations respectively among three subsidiary branches – for power generation, operating the network, and retail. Then, in 2017, market liberalization affected the gas industry too. That is what allowed us to start selling city gas from then, and electricity as a retailer from 2018,” Yuki Matsuda explains.

Such changes are key to understanding what triggered the need for interoperability in the eyes of Nichigas’ executives. The company is currently the largest LPG (Liquefied petroleum gas) retailer in Japan, as well as the 3rd main LNG (Liquefied natural gas) retailer and pipeline operator in the Greater Tokyo area. The Nichigas group gathers a total of five companies between the mother branch and its subsidiary agencies. As one of the top actors in the Japanese energy market, it needs to take care of a vast customer base, counting over 1.5 million people.

Needs and challenges

Just to give an intuitive account of what having so many users entails, imagine one company serving a market larger than the whole population of Estonia (yes, children and elderly citizens included). “With information on users spread across five subsidiary companies, it is clear that this was meant to mess up the efficiency of our customer care. Upon receiving a call, the only piece of information our operators know is the name of the caller. But to provide correct, helpful responses, naturally they need to know much more,” Matsuda says.

That is when the cooperation between Nichigas and tech startup Planetway started. The needs were clear but, on the other hand, the solution was too. After the first contact in spring 2018, Planetway got to the drawing board. And in just one year, the company developed a secure data access platform based on the X-Road technology – PlanetCross.

“Traditionally, we are used to think of X-Road as a tool that predominantly benefits governments. However, in larger countries where digitalization is not so fast to pick up in the public sector, companies can take the lead. But this can happen only if top executives are deeply committed to digital transformation, see its business value, and have the human capital necessary to make the change,” Raul Allikivi explains.

From the match between the clear intents of Nichigas and the expertise provided by Planetway, the Japanese company could reap the benefits of the proprietary product based on X-Road created by the latter. The platform, tailoring the functionalities of the X-Road technology on the needs of the private sector at large, is currently active as a service for Nichigas’ operations. But the possibilities to further increase the pool of firms it serves are plenty. 

The solution

PlanetCross is an award-winning, highly secure data access platform. Drawing from almost 20 years of Estonian experience with X-Road, it incorporates all core features of the pioneering solution to establish bridges between relational databases, ensuring availability and traceability of the information exchanged.

Source: Planetway

The platform is the backbone supporting call centre operations between Nichigas and its other four subsidiary companies. Currently, PlanetCross enables the Japanese energy group to handle around 1.5 million transactions each month through the company’s software Nichigas Search. And beyond capacity-building, the efficiency gains in average handling time of the requests received are also evident. From the initial 6 minutes per call, operators have now reduced it by 45 seconds.

“Planetway’s product and support empowered our effort to make our call centre operations more sophisticated,timely, and of higher quality. As liberalization of the energy sector increases in Japan, digital transformation can unlock opportunities also in the LPG market. In practice, PlanetCross can help reduce operational costs of switching from an energy company to another for customers – and not just due to the way data is handled, but also thanks to a change in the overall approach to relevant business processes. Ultimately, the platform gives an interesting IT character to our activities, and paves the way for further developments in this direction,” Yuki Matsuda says.

The vision for PlanetCross, indeed, stretches beyond the partnership with Nichigas for Planetway too. “In Japan, there are many players with vested interests in the IT field. But in that context, Nichigas is a great example of a relatively medium-sized company where the leadership has a strong vision, and capable people within the company can follow suit effectively. Other companies too, are considering the uptake of this solution to achieve higher efficiency in their operations, unsurprisingly. Scalability is certainly not a problem,” Raul Allikivi explains.

“We believe that, in the near future, private companies could become the main users of X-Road-based technologies. And as our CEO Noriaki Hirao said in a recent interview as well, we have already reached a point where corporations hold much more private data on individuals than governments do. But people should be able to still be the owner of their personal information. X-Road and PlanetCross provide a pretty good blueprint to understanding how this can actually take place. In the future, we hope these technologies and standards can become everyone’s first choice when sensitive private data is involved in environments that need efficient information exchange,” Allikivi concludes.

Piloting digital prescriptions in Germany through secure data exchange

Germany has notably been among the nations that best coped with the threat of the new coronavirus. And now, following the latest plans on further improving readiness and efficacy of its healthcare sector at all levels, the country sees in digitalization one of the steps ahead.

A project in the federal state of Hessen is currently piloting the creation of an electronic portal to manage digital prescriptions, paired with the increased usage of medical video consultations. Nortal, multinational strategic change and tech company from Estonia, took part in the consortium of actors that is making it possible, relying on its previous experience with secure data exchange in diverse contexts. 

We spoke to Taavi Einaste, CEO of Nortal Germany, to find out what sparks interest towards the X-Road® technology there, and how this digital leap to improving public health is progressing.

Background and institutional framework

The pilot project taking place in Hessen must be contextualized within the general public policy strategy to modernize the German healthcare sector. Such a plan is being pushed passionately by the incumbent German Minister of Health, Jens Spahn. In an interview with news portal Politico Europe, released not long before the Covid-19 outbreak, Minister Spahn already highlighted 1) digitization, 2) the intensive and appropriate use of health data, as well as 3) fast and secure data exchange as priorities that stretch beyond national needs. Efforts should be directed to these goals, among others, at the European level. And Germany has already started making a significant move in this direction.

In November 2019, the German federal parliament approved the Digital Healthcare Act, a concrete stepping stone to fostering digital transformation in the country’s healthcare system. In a recent editorial on national newspaper Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Minister Spahn pointed out that trust in digital healthcare will grow as people experience first-hand how these solutions can improve their everyday life. The ongoing pilot project in Hessen aims to provide a practical, tested sample of this.

“The combination of a serious lag compared to the digital leaders and fresh, top federal leadership has forced the German establishment to switch gears. The pandemic has, of course, intensified these efforts, and has been extremely powerful in converting the opposition,” Taavi Einaste adds on the topic. These premises, and Nortal’s expertise and business relations in the German market, enabled the Estonian tech company to take part in a consortium with billing and financial service provider Optica, and start developing the German way to digital prescriptions.

Needs and challenges

Two dimensions emerge more markedly as the drivers of this project – the public policy side of the equation, and a public health-related one. For what concerns the first, there is no question whether increasing digitalization in the healthcare sector could be postponed or not. As Minister Spahn himself outlined, such a step forward was long overdue. Deploying ICTs in as many spheres of governance and society as possible means to provide citizens with better services, particularly when it comes to the protection of their fundamental right to efficient healthcare. That is one of the reasons why Germany’s 2020 EU Council Presidency, from July to December, will incorporate these goals too in its lines of action.

Secondly, on the public health side of the coin, the Covid-19 crisis has made digital solutions a necessity more than ever before. With face-to-face contact dramatically limited, and social distancing enforced, data must move securely instead of citizens. “In Hessen, for example, we expect people and the medical system to get better healthcare services, when and where they are most needed. The pandemic has made this flexibility crucial. Being able to build and set up secure service flows for people independent of their locations, or of moving paper documents between stakeholders – this will both make citizens’ lives easier, and avoid a lot of eventual mistakes. Last but not least, it will probably make everyone save some money in the process too,” Einaste points out.

The solution

Medical video consultations are a powerful tool whose increased usage can dramatically benefit patients. However, these provide real added value only if the preceding and  following steps take place electronically too. To the end of improving their effectiveness, KV Hessen, doctors, health insurance firms and a consortium of IT companies developed the e-prescription portal MORE based on the relative Estonian blueprint. 

After a video consultation takes place, when a digital prescription is issued to patients, they can manage it on the e-prescription portal MORE. With the option to forward it directly and electronically to a registered pharmacy, patients would have to move from their homes just to pick up the supplied medications. Job’s done, as reported in Pharmazeutische Zeitung.

Nortal, drawing from previous experiences in Lithuania and Abu Dhabi, among others, built the back-end solution based on HL7/FHIR standards. In parallel, the X-Road technology was implemented to connect all medical stakeholders involved and ensure secure data exchange between the parties. “Interoperability is a basic need, so that might not be the right word to focus on in this case. The ingredient that makes something like X-Road fit into the German reality, instead, is that we focused on the security and governance of data exchange. The fact that each transaction can be treated as a legal document is an important part of the appeal in the German context,” Einaste says.

“I think the pandemic has opened the eyes of digital pessimists and paper enthusiasts: the lack of digital services should be considered a systemic risk for any modern society. The opportunity to handle even a small section of healthcare cases digitally, or partly digitally, is something I think every medical administrator in the world has been looking for in the last 3-4 months. That’s why Nortal is now discussing the deployment of many new solutions in Germany. And beyond that, with our partners ottonova from Germany and inHealth in Abu Dhabi, we are working on a global travel enabling platform as well,” Einaste concludes.

Empowering citizens and business in the Faroe Islands through interoperability

Embarking on the journey of digital transformation is loaded with different meanings across countries. Large nations could see it as a possibility to streamline long-standing practices in the organisation of their public sectors. For smaller states, instead, modernising service provision and delivery could carry vital, broader-ranging returns.

The Faroe Islands have officially started its most recent efforts to foster digital governance in 2015 with a national digitalisation programme and an agency at the helm of it – Talgildu Føroyar, or Digital Faroe Islands. The implementation of the data exchange layer X-Road represented one of the pillars of its strategy. Lilly Dam Hanssen, Project Manager for X-Road and the Citizen Portal at Talgildu Føroyar, tells us how interoperability enables digital transformation in this autonomous territory of 18 islands and a grand total of about 52 000 people.

Background and institutional framework

Cross-border cooperation in the digital field, by now has become the norm in Northern Europe. The Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) was born exactly with the purpose of fostering and deepening cooperation between countries on cross-border digital services. In September 2018 Iceland became a partner of NIIS, and in May 2019 the Faroe Islands became a partner as well.

The Faroe Islands, however, had started its own process of digital transformation already four years earlier, in 2015. With the creation of Talgildu Føroyar in collaboration with the e-Governance Academy, the Faroese Ministry of Finance set the record straight on what they should focus on for the following five years – making life easier for citizens, businesses, and the public administration.

The Faroe Islands are a subnational island jurisdiction (SNIJ) in the territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. However, its international status allows locals to take care of most governing tasks proper of a state. It should not come as a surprise, then, the current effort towards increasing institutional capacity by means of e-governance projects. 

But, already back in 1984, a unique identifier for every Faroese citizen was created for fiscal purposes under the name ‘P-Number’. Then, since 2004, several online environments have been established for taxation and healthcare. Moreover, the country boasts today broadband access for all households and 98% coverage of the national territory. These are good starting points for a digital strategy, but reasons for such a leap lie as well in other relevant contextual factors. 

Needs and challenges

As many small countries, the Faroe Islands face serious challenges connected to its economic, demographic, and social dimensions. The fishing industry holds a predominant place among the nation’s economic activities, with the IT sector currently just recovering from past financial blows. One of the major concerns is youth depopulation – as human capital migrates abroad in search for more opportunities and a less geoeconomically isolated outlook.

Attitudes around the country’s digital strategy span beyond potential cures to such existential threats. Researcher Keegan McBride from TalTech’s Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, has explored in a study recently published expectations on cost effectiveness and efficiency. These revolve around the idea that digitalisation implies a reduction in administrative costs in the medium-long run. Though it might not always be the case, particularly in contexts with shortage of human resources, it is understandable that budgetary issues are particularly crucial in small states. 

Lilly Dam Hanssen, then, brings up another issue – of a more technical nature – that the Faroese government was trying to solve. “We wanted a standardised way of communicating or sharing data between government institutions, involving the private sector too. At the same time, we needed to have a complete overview of who is sharing what with whom. Safety and security, of course, were crucial components of this idea as well,” she says.

The solution

As a result, one of the four pillars of the Faroese digital strategy was the creation of a secure data exchange environment. Named Heldin, the Faroese X-Road environment allows public and private sector entities to exchange data in a secure and efficient manner. 

It works also as an enabler for further e-governance development. “The National Digitalisation Programme of the Faroe Islands is based on a citizens’ portal, electronic identity, interoperability, and basic data registries. As you can see, Heldin is right there. Not by chance it was the first pillar to be implemented, as we believe it’s what brings the other solutions together,” Hanssen explains.

Heldin was implemented already in 2016 based on version 5 of the X-Road technology. Three years and no points of failure ahead, the Faroe Islands is looking into migrating to X-Road version 6. “Today, Heldin counts 34 institutions and 37 services. But since we are getting our citizen service portal ready, these numbers are set to grow in the upcoming months. The main advantage of Heldin is that it allows decentralised data exchange. Moreover, the platform is compatible with all the IT systems that service providers are using. It’s fundamental in our effort to reach the goals of our National Digitalisation Strategy,” Hanssen highlights.

“We chose to name our X-Road environment ‘Heldin’ from a traditional Faroese tool, made of ram's horn. In the good old days, it was used to carry hay. A rope would be tied to the Held and looped around the hay, securely binding it all together, so we could also carry more of it,” Hanssen concludes. With the increasing amount of data exchanged, we can confirm – X-Road fits the purpose. 

Access to electricity and gas smart meter data in Estonia powered by X-Road

Energy efficiency, renewables and consumer centricity figure among the lines of action to boost the transition towards cleaner energy systems - ways of producing, delivering and consuming energy in a more sustainable way. In the framework of a global call to action, the European Union has established targets related to these main areas in its Clean Energy for All Europeans package. However, commitment to the common good consists not only of great objectives, but also of tools that effectively allow us to reach them.

The deployment of information technology has a significant impact on the feasibility of contemporary policy actions. Elering, the Estonian independent electricity and gas transmission system operator (TSO), has decided to rely on the X-Road technology to create Estfeed – the solution for data access and exchange on Elering’s smart grid platform. Kaija Valdmaa, Project Manager of Estfeed at Elering, tells us how innovation represents a potential meeting point between environmental sustainability, active participation, and cost efficiency for consumers.

Background and institutional framework

The mission and main purposes of Estfeed as an energy data exchange platform are entrenched in the history of Elering as a company. The approval of the Third Energy Package (2009) by the European Parliament pushed for the liberalisation of national energy markets. The Government of Estonia opted then for founding Elering already in January 2010, separating the company from the production and sales activities of Eesti Energia. The duties and competences of Elering focus on the security of energy supply, and the management of the Estonian electricity and gas system in real time. Through activities of market monitoring and research and development, the company also contributes to policy formulation through expertise and technical know-how.

Elering was already part of the Estonian national X-Road environment X-tee, which gave ground to the creation of Estfeed. The amendments brought to the Electricity Market Act (2003) in 2014 and to the Natural Gas Act (2003) in 2017 were meant to facilitate market competition and foster information exchange. As a result, regulations contributed to give Elering further legitimacy on legal grounds to develop the Estfeed data exchange platform.

More recent EU-wide developments – such as the GDPR regulation and the provisions of the Clean Energy package – contributed to the ongoing refining of Estfeed’s tasks and prerogatives towards becoming the energy data exchange platform for the whole EU. Operative since September 2017, Estfeed ensures smart meter data access and management in Estonia. Third parties that would not have access on a legal basis, like suppliers, app developers, and consumers, can now access consumer smart meter data – if users have previously granted access rights to the specific service provider.

Needs and challenges

Estfeed is located at the intersection of the needs of consumers (data owners), energy service providers (data users) and meter data hubs (data providers). With the amount of data generated on consumption, production, and transmission, effective information management is the key to systemically increase the efficiency and reliability of the energy system. Consequentially to such improvements, app developers and Elering itself can provide further customer-friendly e-services for citizens to keep track of their electricity or gas consumption and production data. 

For this to happen, the presence of smart meters in offices and households needs to become the norm – a target achieved in Estonia by 2014 already, with 100% coverage. But as Kaija Valdmaa points out, “In the energy sector, challenges are not anymore about building new physical grids, but about their smart management, especially because of the increase in renewables, distributed production and service provision.” With all the changes witnessed in the energy sector, “the market requires accurate and real-time data to be more and better accessible,” Valdmaa continues.

Though Estonian regulations already granted market participants the possibility to access data by law, universities, research centres, and app developers also wished to join the network. However, providing them with this chance was not stated in any kind of legal act. Based on such elements, the resulting research project initiated by Elering identified X-Road as a feasible solution to the challenge. Features like secure data exchange, and organisation and machine-to-machine level authentication, are provided by X-Road out of the box. In addition, the Estfeed consent management system (built on top of X-Road) monitors and grants third parties access to users’ information, as citizens remain the owners of their own data.

The solution

Active since September 2017, Estfeed is capable of harmonizing energy data access for companies, developers, and citizens for an efficient management of energy meter data in a trusted, GDPR-compliant environment. It also allows consumers to participate in the energy market – an essential goal in the Clean Energy Package - using smart services like consumption management, providing flexibility services to the transmission grid through the aggregation of many consumers.

The platform developed by Elering is based on the X-Road technology. It features high security standards in access and authentication, interoperability, efficiency in information exchange through standardization. “The decision to choose X-Road in the first place was not a technical matter, but about the business value of the technology. Thanks to reliability, transparency, the certification and transaction systems, X-Road could offer the trust and credibility needed to develop our own platform,” Valdmaa explains.

Furthermore, the e-Elering portal – as the front office of Estfeed´s consent management system – gives customers the possibility to check, compare, and grant third parties access to personal energy metering data through 14 different services. All while in the background, the Estfeed platform exchanges and manages data hubs and sensors information seamlessly. In its main functionalities, Estfeed enables: 

• Data access and sharing;

• For end-consumers, the possibility to check consumption and production information, as well as to authorize third parties to access their meter data;

• The endurance of a central platform for the efficient management of electricity and gas meter data access. 

In an integrated European framework, TSO-s are also tasked with the role of managing inward and outward fluxes, as well as data access. Elering and Estfeed stand as an example of how information technology can help monitor and redistribute energy resources. It means working for the common good in two ways – cutting costs for citizens and caring about the environment.

Source: Elering.ee

Improving environmental services in the Greater Helsinki area

With the purpose of increasing its capabilities in data exchange and access to key information, the Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority (HSY) is currently working on joining Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer, the Finnish X-Road environment, to foster the provision of water services and waste management in the Greater Helsinki area.

The project is currently undergoing the set-up phase, testing connections between information systems of relevant public authorities. Timo Vakkilainen, Project and Development Manager of Digital Services at HSY, describes how connecting information systems to the data exchange layer will impact the quality of performance for service users and the environment.

Background and institutional framework

In Finland, the open source data exchange layer solution X-Road ensures confidentiality, integrity and interoperability between information systems. The development of Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer, the national X-Road environment, took place under the three-year-long National Service Architecture Programme (KaPa). Throughout the past two years, the Suomi.fi Web Service portal has been established as the single gateway to e-services for citizens and companies, shifting administrative tasks and practices to the digital environment.

As it often happens in e-governance, legislative changes proved to be necessary to enable the transition. The Act on Common Administrative E-Service Support Services (2016) required public authorities to join the Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer, and HSY makes no exception. The environmental agency was looking into connecting with other public authorities such as the Population Register Center, the Patent and Registration Office, the National Land Survey of Finland. Now, by joining the Finnish X-Road environment, together with the use of Suomi.fi e-Authorizations and e-Identification services, HSY is aiming to collect information necessary to its activities in more efficient and accurate ways.

Needs and challenges

The accuracy of information is indeed one of the main concerns for HSY. In order to effectively provide services on water and waste management to the population of the Greater Helsinki area, counting over one million inhabitants, data on consumption and collected waste amounts and costs must be as up-to-date as possible. 

Though we may not be talking about real-time information, surely owners’ addresses for billing and other types of communications have to be spot on. At the same time, the financial situation of companies becoming customers of the HSY, or currently being listed as such, is also relevant. Such type of information can be gathered either from other public registers or through self-service reporting. Interoperability between public authorities can enhance necessary data exchange, and digital authentication tools enable users to submit reports themselves. 

However, before getting to fully roll out an efficient digital ecosystem, public entities sometimes have to go through a series of obstacles pertaining technical know-how and legislative frameworks. Though joining the Finnish X-Road was meant to be as easy as possible for any organization, “we realized from the beginning that we just did not have the resources to implement and maintain the servers needed to connect to Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer,” Vakkilainen explains. “Luckily we managed to initially buy the Security Servers ‘as a service’ from a partner company and we implemented them in their cloud,” Vakkilainen says.

At the same time, the once-only principle had not yet been achieved as common practice in the Finnish data exchange environment. “Some legal obstacles did not make consuming services via Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer work as seamlessly for everyone as it was supposed to. We would still need to send official requests for personal data to different actors” Vakkilainen warns, making the case for technical and legislative developments to progress as parallel lines towards the creation of a truly efficient digital ecosystem.

The solution

By joining the national Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer, HSY will be able to request up-to-date information from other relevant public registers and increase the effectiveness of its operations. “I think we saw the advantages quite well from the beginning, without any push or pull from other actors. Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer offers a great platform for data exchange and makes it easier to build new digitized services based on interoperability between national registers, for both citizens and companies,” Vakkilainen highlights.

To take advantage of the possibilities offered by different Suomi.fi services, provided by the Population Register Centre as the responsible authority, HSY is pairing efficient data exchange with e-Identification and e-Authorizations as well – the latter of which has been shortlisted for the Sharing & Reuse Awards 2019 of the European Commission platform Joinup. “HSY works to significantly increase the efficiency of its services for private users, companies, and institutions in Greater Helsinki. With servers relying now on HSY’s Azure Cloud and currently being tested, rolling out the first services will take place already in the next few months,” Vakkilainen announces.

From self-service reporting through secure identification to gathering accurate information about users and consumption. Interoperability can boost the effectiveness of environmental services provided for over one million citizens in Finland. As a municipal body and an institution, HSY saw digital development as an opportunity to be closer to people and enterprises in caring for the quality of the lived environment.

Iceland joins the Nordic interoperability league with Straumurinn

On a quest to improve the availability and accessibility of public services, Iceland becomes the latest country to implement its own X-Road data exchange layer environment. Straumurinn, the Icelandic name given to the platform, is set to increase the ability of the government to deliver online services for both public and private actors.

Increasing security and safety of the data exchange established, and with the goal to make the once-only principle a reality, X-Road was presented as the ideal solution to tackle organizational and efficiency issues in the Icelandic public administration. Guðlaug Dröfn Þórhallsdóttir, Project Manager for interoperability at Digital Iceland (Stafrænt Ísland – Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs), explains what’s the current status of the project and what are the main advantages that Straumurinn is set to bring.

Background and institutional framework

The cooperation between Iceland and the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) officially started in September 2018. NIIS and Iceland went on to officially sign the partnership agreement, making Iceland the first partner of the international development organization of X-Road, and giving the kick-off towards the development and implementation of Straumurinn.

At the time, government authorities in Iceland were aiming to build an interoperability platform that would suit the needs of the public administration, in cooperation with the European Union with regard to the procurement process. During such stage, X-Road was identified as the way to go to provide Iceland with its own national data exchange layer. The project falls within the framework of the Digital Iceland initiative, under the supervision and jurisdiction of the Icelandic Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. 

The Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs of Iceland Bjarni Benediktsson met with NIIS in November 2018 – in presence of Siim Sikkut, Government CIO of Estonia, Anna-Maija Karjalainen, Director General of Public Sector ICT for the Finnish Ministry of Finance, and Ville Sirviö, CEO of NIIS. On February 27, 2019, a high-level meeting between the Prime Ministers of Iceland and Estonia, respectively Katrín Jakobsdóttir and Jüri Ratas, became the perfect occasion for ministers to announce that Iceland is adopting X-Road for secure data exchange and interoperability.

Needs and challenges

Iceland is currently undergoing an effort to update and improve its public sector systems, and enable authorities to deal more efficiently with the exchange of data and information. Among the needs laid out emerge the desire to deliver most public services in a digital ecosystem, to enforce the once-only principle when it comes to data provision and applications, to cut on the time and effort currently necessary to fill out forms and requests.

The country fares particularly well when it comes to telecommunication infrastructures, for example with regard to high speed network coverage and internet usage – but providing public services online is a different story. “Citizens demand more and better online services, but our distributed technical environment of databases and departments is characterized by poor interoperability,” Þórhallsdóttir explains. As the Head of Division at Digital Iceland, she’s aware that some structural work needs to be done, particularly so to avoid the risk of just replicating flawed practices and procedures in a digital environment.

Currently going through the set-up phase of Straumurinn, the Icelandic government is facing two types of challenges – organizational and technical. “Changes in laws and legislation are necessary, as well as a clear understanding of the distribution of roles and responsibilities in a changed ecosystem. We are now proceeding with setting-up the infrastructure, though we know that we need to create also a system of seamless services around the implementation of the platform,” Þórhallsdóttir says. Moving from such level of awareness, contacts with Estonian and Finnish partners stay strong, as mistakes and success points always prove to be good examples of the dos and don’ts in structural changes involving technology.

The solution

It did not take long to realize that X-Road is a viable option to solve some of the issues that Digital Iceland is aiming to tackle. The data exchange layer originally developed in Estonia, and then adopted by a series of other countries, has proved to be a fundamental support to the establishment of secure data exchange between the public and the private, and to be one of the key elements in the making of a truly digital society. We have witnessed it in Estonia, and then with the cross-border data exchange taking place between Estonia and Finland. Now, Iceland is implementing its X-Road environment, Straumurinn, to satisfy citizens’ expectations and make most public services available and accessible online.

Straumurinn is the Icelandic way to efficiency and security in information exchange. After the set-up phase, the first services will be available through the X-Road environment, enabling government agencies and ministries to exchange information through a standardized and secure solution. “We will be able to communicate with citizens using different information systems or online interfaces, and we will do so in a more flexible and functional way than today. X-Road will make the exchange of information between Icelandic agencies and business organizations easier to handle, especially with regard to queries and form submissions, and it will help us build our State portal,” Þórhallsdóttir highlights.

And though it is true that the data exchange layer was born in Estonia, the X-Road family includes today also Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. Could this be the prelude to a Nordic data exchange alliance? Cross-border cooperation reduces the workload of the public sector, and fosters international business activity through increased efficiency and reduced paperwork. Together, these countries are setting an example on how to build closer ties in a geo-economic area driven by digital governance and interoperability.

The business registers of Estonia and Finland start cross-border interoperability

The end of February 2019 brought great news for the enhancement of interoperability across borders. National business registers in Estonia and Finland are starting to exchange data between each other taking advantage of the opportunities given by X-Road, as the gateway to higher information accuracy and efficiency in handling queries.

Both parties involved have officially put their signatures on the agreement. Now, we take you through the main features of the cooperation on this project with Antti Riivari, Director General of the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH), and Ingmar Vali, Head of Court Registration Department at the Estonian Ministry of Justice.

Background and institutional framework

The process that led to the signing of the agreement followed two parallel lines, not always moving towards the same goal at the same speed – there is a political side, and there is a technical side. Contrarily to what we could believe to be the issue in countries with a longer legacyon their shoulders, the technical aspects of the cooperation between the two business registers seemed to be cleared out by the end of 2017 already. However, in order to lay out and understand specifically what kind of data is going to be exchanged, and who has access to that information, there is the need for a specific agreement.

The final document with such information has been officially signed in February 2019, but it falls into place in the general institutional framework on digital cross-border cooperation between Estonia and Finland. Back in 2016, the Estonian and the Finnish Prime Ministers signed the joint declaration establishing the main lines of development to pursue for an international ecosystem in information exchange. Shortly afterwards, it became clear how the countries’ business registers could be among the first departments in the public sector to enjoy the advantages given by the implementation of X-Road.

Two things turned out to be necessary for this cooperation to come to life – refining the nation-wide implementation of X-Road in Finland and the compatibility with the Estonian system, as well as a specific definition of the people and the type of data that were to be involved in the information exchange. Though the cooperation on making the two systems match started right after the needs had been identified, it was only in 2018 that Estonia and Finland initially discussed the institutional draft agreement. Now in its official version, the document gives the green light to a few last operational tests and the practical beginning of the data exchange.

Needs and challenges

Antti Riivari (PRH) says it with a metaphor: “You need the road to drive on, and then you can have very different types of cars going to different places, but first you need the road.” X-Road in Finland was intended to provide a platform for all its departments and databases to communicate and cooperate. Then, after this initial phase, government agencies could actually proceed with more advanced practices of data exchange.

Despite not involving huge traffic of data and connections (for now), the Estonian and Finnish business registers identified a set of needs related to three main dimensions – quality of the data, efficiency, cost-effectiveness.

The topic of data accuracy is strictly connected to the long-lasting need for more security. “Let’s say that there is a company coming to Estonia to start a sub-unit or a branch here. If the mother company has some problems related to bankruptcy, or court cases, or annual reports, the business register in Estonia needs to know what is going on”, is the fitting example presented by Ingmar Vali (Ministry of Justice). Thus, enhancing the registers’ capability to gather the information they need results in a higher confidence in the data itself and less bureaucracy for both public and private actors, making checks and approvals more precise and quicker.

“But despite the general absence of problematic issues, an obstacle has been represented by fees”, Vali explains. While information can be accessed free of chargein the Estonian case, most business registers from other European countries require payments to access specific data. With the Finnish business register making no exception in this sense, this element accounted for the main talking point in the definition of the cooperation.

The solution

X-Road is now allowing the business register of Estonia and Finland to exchange queries directly, increasing the efficiency of the communications and improving the accuracy of the data. 

The recently signed agreement also generates more advantages for both the agencies and entrepreneurs – in the first place by cutting the costs of submitting requests, and in the second by eliminating the unnecessary paperwork that would have been required in country-to-country transactions. “It’s a need-driven process, we’re making sure that everything works as it should, and then we’ll explore future possibilities step by step. We now want to define and connect the authorities that would be most keen on accessing information on Estonian companies”, Riivari says.

Basic company details aside, the improved quality of the data and information security brings data exchange to the next level. “After reaching the full-scale implementation phase, borders and paper movement will basically stop, which is our goal because it makes everything more efficient and less costly. Imagine if these principles would take over across Europe! Estonia and Finland, in this sense, are doing well in setting an example for this idea”, Vali states.

By having X-Road as a national data exchange layer solution in Finland and Estonia, plugging in units and departments of the public administration to an X-Road trust federation between two countries comes easier. The case of the two business registers is another sign of how technology can favour international cooperation, and make routine work smoother and more efficient for both users and service providers.

Estonia and Finland heading towards real-time data exchange on taxation

The Estonian Tax and Customs Board (EMTA) and the Finnish Tax Administration (VERO) are moving towards a cooperation that would allow the agencies to exchange data in a more accurate and efficient way. And speaking of ways, what could serve the purpose better than the reliable and well-tested infrastructure of X-Road?

With the project currently on hold, but at a stage where preliminary talks and declarations of intention have already been explored, Anna Aleksejeva (EMTA) and Ann-Sofi Johansson (VERO) tell us about needs and benefits that this project will be dealing with.

Background and institutional framework

The northern and the southern shores of the Gulf of Finland celebrated the 100thanniversary of their independence respectively in 2017 and 2018. However, by that time, Estonia and Finland had already reached a crucial agreement enhancing the long-standing cooperation between the two countries: at the coming of age of the two Republics, Prime Ministers of both sides had signed a joint declaration in 2016 enhancing cross-border data exchange and the development of digital services in different fields. Tax records and fiscal matters, naturally, were included in the declaration as well.

The tax boards of Estonia and Finland have started a project aimed at fostering the exchange of information via X-Road, as the platform provides the best solution for the countries to share data in a secured, stable, and efficient digital environment. Legal obstacles have not presented concerns, and a draft agreement awaits to receive the final signatures; however, the current project, started in December 2016 and temporarily put aside exactly one year later, encountered a few bumps on technicalities regarding the databases that were to be connected. Currently on hold, both parties remain strongly interested in the project and work towards solving the last issues that can make this cooperation start in practice as well. 

The interest manifested by Estonia and Finland does not represent a novelty in this sense, not even for what concerns tax-related data exchange. The forefather of the current project could be identified in the BSR TaxI plan from 2014 and 2015, aimed at gathering tax authorities and state information agencies from Estonia, Sweden, and Latvia, and explore the possibilities for cross-border cooperation “on the electronic exchange of tax information in the Baltic Sea Region”. Though Finnish tax authorities did not take part to that project, both Estonia and Finland took the chance to openly express interest in starting bilateral agreements that would make such kind of cooperation come to life. As it then turned out, tax-related topics became part of the broader, more comprehensive agreement that the two countries reached in order to establish a smart process of information exchange.

Needs and challenges

Due to the current status of the project, it’s not easy to provide numbers on how many people and companies would be positively affected by this project. The needs to be tackled, instead, are clear and shared between the tax authorities of the two countries. “It is difficult to summarise and process the number of requests we receive”, explains Aleksejeva, Chief Expert at the International Information Exchange unit of EMTA, “as these often include information from foreign databases and additional documents that need to be analysed by an employee”. It is primarily a matter of human resources, since “human labour is frequently involved and now it can take from 1 up to 20 months to get the information we need”, Aleksejeva explains.

Ann-Sofi Johansson, Manager at the International Information Exchange department of VERO, gives us an idea of the pipeline involved in the process of requesting information. We are currently presented with a situation where employees need to overlook the process of auditing and requesting information from foreign authorities from the beginning to the end. “Saving resources is important, for example in the case of an audit: right now, if we need information from Estonia, first we have someone defining what kind of information is needed; then someone sends the request; then there’s another person on the other side receiving and processing the request, and so on and so on”, Johansson says.

Connecting agencies and databases, once that issues of compatibility and readability of the data are overcome, will allow the two Tax Boards to save human and economic resources, and to increase the accuracy of the data exchanged.

The solution

The reliability and scalability of X-Road has been put to test in different contexts and situations already. The reasons that make its implementation so appealing in this case are connected to what made it the backbone of e-Estonia, serving the needs of a whole country since 2001: efficiency, accuracy, security.

The path Estonia and Finland already decided to take, first with the Prime Ministers’ declaration, and then with the start of different projects aimed at enforcing such cooperation, implies the use of X-Road in its adaptability to diverse situations. As both the Estonian and the Finnish Tax Boards have recognized, the current project will bring significant advantages to the two agencies in dealing with income declarations, VAT information, and international audits.

“What we need to have is real-time information right from the start,” Johansson states, “as the world keeps moving faster, and it is important for us to dispose of correct information, at the right time, to formulate correct data on taxation”. The benefits do not affect only the quality of the information exchanged, but also the general workflow managed by the two agencies. “X-Road would be the perfect solution to avoid unnecessary manual analysis of data and to automate the information exchange between databases for simple requests,” Aleksejeva highlights.

The Estonian Tax and Customs Board and the Finnish Tax Administration remain interested in the project, and are currently working on the issues of compatibility and readiness to make the cooperation effectively see the light.