The Government has approved a new interoperability proposal based on a simple principle: citizens and businesses should only have to give the State the same information once.

If a document or piece of information is already held by one public authority, another should obtain it directly rather than asking the person involved to provide it again.

The change could apply to common administrative procedures involving documents such as certificates confirming that someone has no outstanding debts with the Tax Authority or Social Security.

The proposal will now need to go through the Assembly of the Republic before the new system can take full effect.

Public services to share information

At the centre of the plan is Portugal’s existing Public Administration Interoperability Platform, known as iAP.

Use of the platform would become mandatory for public bodies covered by the new regime, allowing information to move securely between different authorities.

In practical terms, the Government wants to stop citizens acting as messengers between different branches of the Portuguese administration.

Someone applying for a licence or dealing with another public procedure, for example, should no longer have to obtain a document from one government department simply to hand it over to another.

The Government says the system will only share information necessary for the particular service being provided and that existing data protection rules will continue to apply.

The Agency for State Technological Reform (ARTE), which manages the infrastructure, will facilitate the exchange of information without accessing the content of the data being transmitted.

The rules are intended to cover a wide section of the public sector, including central government bodies, municipalities, municipal services and public companies providing public services. The autonomous regions are also included, subject to the necessary adaptations.

Could save billions

The Government believes reducing duplicated paperwork could have a significant economic impact.

Using Estonia’s experience with digital public administration as a reference, it estimates that greater interoperability could eventually produce savings equivalent to 2% of Portugal’s GDP, or around €6 billion a year.

That figure is an estimate rather than a guaranteed saving and depends on how extensively the system is ultimately implemented.

Minister of the Presidency António Leitão Amaro said repeatedly asking people for information already held by the State creates unnecessary costs in both time and money.

Portugal already has much of the technology required to exchange information between public bodies, but the Government says its use has been limited by requirements including repeated consent and individual agreements between different authorities.

The new regime is intended to remove some of those obstacles.

Portugal is also working within a wider European move towards the “once-only” principle. The EU’s Once-Only Technical System is designed to allow citizens and businesses completing cross-border administrative procedures to reuse information already held by public authorities elsewhere in the European Union.

For anyone accustomed to collecting certificates and carrying information from one Portuguese public service to another, the change could eventually make dealing with the State considerably simpler.