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.

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. 

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.