On October 5 and 6, 2022, it was held in Ottawa (Canada) the Digital Government SumWith, the world summit of digital governments, organized by Global Government Forum, which invited the Open Administration of Catalonia (AOC) to participate. This meeting brings together national and departmental digital heads from around the world to discuss the opportunities and challenges of the digital transformation of the public sector. Under the "Chatham House Rules“, the event allowed participants to talk openly and honestly about their successes, challenges, failures and what they've learned along the way.
The managing director of the AOC, Ástrid Desset, presented the work being done in Catalonia on interoperability and digital identity, in addition to announcing the results of the tests of decentralized digital identity and interoperability on blockchain, carried out in the EBSI test environment (European Blockchain Services Infrastructures) together with Rovira i Virgili University, two Belgian universities, the municipality of El Prat de Llobregat and the AOC. You can find all related and detailed information in the article published on our blog titled “Self-managed digital identity on blockchain".
Desset detailed how tests have been developed to generate decentralized identities that citizens can save in their wallets.eres digital, within mobile devices, and once they are the owners of their data, they decide what information to share and with whom.
For example, proving that you are over 18 to access a service could be done without showing all the rest of the information stored in your wallet, thus preserving the address or other data that is not of interest to you.eresto show. The same decentralized identity is used by a Belgian student to identify themselves to their university, obtain their bachelor's degree and save it in the same digital wallet, and then present it to the Catalan university to study a master's degree.
Regarding the interoperability test, it has been achieved by using the same decentralized identity saved in the digital wallet to identify the user and only with their ID card or passport, connecting to the interoperability service of VIA OBERTA from the AOC to consult student registration data.
Apart from digital identity and interoperability as the central theme of his intervention, Desset also explained the common services that the AOC offers to all Catalan administrations and how the more than 2,6 million digital identities in Catalonia to process with the administrations. The director of the AOC emphasized that they were the first administration to allow obtaining a digital identity by video identification, comfortably from home.
He also explained how the VALID service works, a system that allows citizens and public personnel to prove their identity on administration portals, with full guarantees and security, as well as to sign forms and documents.
Finally, Desset mentioned some future projects in which the AOC and the Generalitat are working to facilitate the use of digital identity for citizens, unifying the different identity systems they may have in the same APP and which will allow also cloud-qualified signature.
Some of the participants showed interest in security and data localization in the blockchain infrastructure. Desset stated that this is a more secure word system than having fragmented identities spread across different administrations. He also explained that in the blockchain system, the data is not on the network, but rather attributes that are in the digital wallet on the user's device and that the user chooses when and with whom to use them. What is distributed in the blockchain record is a sequence that is the result of the cryptographic function that encrypts your identity (the data set). Any change in the data will generate a different cryptographic result, it being impossible to obtain the same combination or sequence if even one comma changes. It is, therefore, a new system that offers maximum security and privacy.
They also asked if it was easy to use and the director explained that it is more complicated to explain how it works than to use it. It is very easy for the user; you have an application that you can unlock with biometric patterns (fingerprints, iris, face) or the traditional PINS. Again, it should be noted that the biometric data is exclusively on the device. Once the application is opened and the user authenticated, he can use his decentralized identity to identify himself in administration portals.
Regarding int experienceseressaints from other governments of the world, they stand out:
Digital identity. Most of the attending countries have implemented, or are in the process of implementing, video identification systems. Some have combined facial recognition with the citizen's public cryptographic key (their certificate) to provide a cloud version of electronic signature. Most have implemented solutions that allow the “Single Sign On”, that is, to identify yourself once and navigate between administration portals without having to repeat the process.
Governance. They have the same difficulties as we do in not duplicating efforts between agencies and departments and not competing with each other. They have improved a lot since creating regular spaces to share knowledge and experiences.
Project standardization. Some countries have created regulations on how digital transformation projects should be designed, from which profiles there should be, to the phases and the documentation that needs to be obtained.
Digitization plans. Some countries have created a strategy and roadmap and need to do a lot of training for public servants.
Talent in public organizations. They have the same difficulties as in Catalonia. Lack of specialized and technological profiles that know how the administrations work and difficulty in competing in salaries. The need to create a “pool” of talent, combining knowledge of technology with the personal skills known as “soft skills".
Cloud infrastructures. Some lessons learned by other governments: If you don't prepare well for cloud migration, you're bound to have problems. The actual implementation in most countries is migrating to the hybrid cloud.
Data. It is a critical factor for any government and the basis of any system. You need to know where the data is, who has it, for whom it can be useful, how we interoperate. All these aspects today are basic for every project in the bosom of governments.
Els representaGlobal leaders who attended highlighted that “digital transformation is a state of mind”, that “disruption is always there” and that “transformation is continuous”.
Information of interest:
Full presentation by the director of the AOC (in English)
