The once-only principle is an e-government concept that aims to ensure that citizens, institutions, and companies only have to provide certain standard information to the authorities and administrations once. By incorporating data protection regulations and the explicit consent of the users, the public administration is allowed to re-use and exchange the data with each other. The once-only principle is part of the European Union's (EU) plans to further develop the Digital Single Market by reducing the administrative burden on citizens and businesses.
Description The application of the once-only principle to public administrations in all EU Member States aims to reduce administrative burdens. This objective was endorsed by EU ministers in the Ministerial Declaration on eGovernment in 2009. The EU-wide application of once-only is also one of the pillars of the strategy for the Digital Single Market and one of the basic principles of the EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020.
The once-only principle is defined differently in the individual EU Member States. In some countries it refers to data storage, which means storing the collected data in a single database. In other countries, once-only refers to data collection and specifies that data may be transmitted only once to public administrations, but that multiple data repositories are possible. Other countries combine both approaches and require that the data must be collected only once and stored in a single database.
Government-Centric vs Citizen-Centric Once-Only
Critical to the discussion of once-only is who is doing the sharing and using which identity. There are two opposing approaches; the government-centric and the citizen-centric - both of which technically implement once-only.
In the government-centric model, the citizen use the same or easily linkable identifiers across applications, borders and databases. In this case, data control is centralized leading to systemic profiling and accumulation of risks. Proponents - mainly government bureaucracy - of this model claim it to be more efficient and more likely to be deliverable.
In the citizen-centric model, the citizen do not use the same or linkable identifiers, but instead a variant of privacy/security by design such as according to e.g. EU Digital Signature Regulation article 5.2 on pseudonymous signatures and identity. Applying this principle the citizen can have non-linkable but fully functional and legal identities that are not linkable even within the same application in the same database in the same member state. In this model control is decentralized and the citizen act as data broker. Proponents – mainly citizen-rights experts and activists (e.g. EDRI), legal experts, security experts and economists – of this model claim it to be more effective and secure as it prevents classical command & control failures ensuring systems adapt to citizens choice and drastically reduce security risks.
In addition to the technical and economic issues, there is a real concern that government-centric model similar to data retention will prove incompatible with GDPR and Human Rights article 8 as it requires government profiling citizen in order to detect attempted requests for data already collected for another purpose. This problem would not arise in privacy by design based citizen-centric once-only models.
Citizen-centric models are under implementation in Denmark in a model named CitizenKey.
Benefits The once-only principle can help to reduce administrative burdens in the EU Member States, as exchanging information that has already been collected is cheaper and less burdensome than collecting and storing it repeatedly. Furthermore, some experts believe that data protection concerns can be better taken into account.
Process optimization and potentially higher administrative efficiency are described as main advantages of once-only for public administrations. These include fewer calls to customer service centers, fewer paper-based applications, faster processing of administrative processes, time savings due to reduced data capture requirements and fewer data errors due to data reuse. This could save costs for public administrations and improve the quality of various public services.
Cross-border implementation of the principle could also help to ensure equal treatment for domestic and foreign persons and companies in the use of public services, for which they are obliged to provide information to public authorities. Better public value creation could, on the overall level, improve the legitimacy, transparency and accountability of public administrations.
Barriers According to a study carried out on behalf of the European Commission, once-only encounters technical, organisational, semantic, and legal obstacles to implementation throughout the EU.
On the technical side, there is a lack of a comprehensive and secure data exchange solution, interoperable catalogs and IT systems as well as a lack of infrastructure for a secure and data protection-compliant exchange. In addition, other barriers are organisational in nature. The study includes the lack of clear political guidance, the high implementation costs and the lack of administrative willingness to cooperate and exchange data. As far as semantic aspects are concerned, the challenge lies in the lack of or over-distributed registers and the insufficient interoperability of existing registers and data. In addition, barriers exist due to different standards, taxonomies, data models and data quality. Legal obstacles include the heterogeneity of national legal frameworks, data protection and respect for privacy.
These aspects prevent a fast and far-reaching implementation of the once-only principle at European level.
Criticism and public reception The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Giovanni Buttarelli, welcomed the EU-initiative, but claimed additional clarity on important data protection principles. In particular, the proposal should not provide a legal basis for the exchange of information for purposes other than those mentioned therein. Furthermore, it should not restrict the principle of purpose limitation laid down in the General Data Protection Regulation. The EDPS also asks for clarification of a number of questions relating to the practical implementation of user control. The advocacy group European Digital Rights (EDRi) pointed out, that a once-only implementation needs to follow privacy by design and privacy by default, to be citizen-friendly and user-oriented.
A representative survey on e-government in Germany, Austria and Switzerland in 2017 showed that the majority of the population in each country is rather skeptical. A national once-only implementation received less than 50% support in all countries, a Europe-wide once-only implementation received less than 20%.
Implementation of the once-only principle (national) By 2014, 25 European countries had begun to implement once-only to a certain extent and 13 countries had legislation supporting the implementation of the principle for businesses and individuals. However, implementation is still fragmented across the EU and once-only cross-border applications are still limited to a few services and cases. The most advanced once-only infrastructures exist in Belgium, Estonia and the Netherlands, which have national legislation and enforce its implementation.
Estonia In Estonia, once-only is used in most administrative procedures. Several essential prerequisites, including legal, administrative and technical requirements, have been fulfilled. Since 2007, the Public Information Act prohibits the creation of separate databases for the collection of the same data. Also, the General Part of the Economic Activities Code Act states that economic administrative authorities are prohibited to require companies to provide information that is already entered in a public database. The prohibition also applies to information which can be obtained from the relevant register of another Contracting State.
In the health sector in Estonia, the once-only principle is already being used in the electronic health record. Since 2008, e-Estonia health data has been managed via a central database. Specialists can document analyses, diagnoses, test results and treatment procedures. After a transfer to a hospital, for example, the patient data can be retrieved from the database without the patient having to enter the data again. In emergency situations, an electronic first aid card can be generated in the ambulance after identification of the patient, which provides vital data to the first responders. Patients can access the database via a (mobile) ID card and manage their data independently and give their consent/rejection to the data exchange.
Netherlands In the Netherlands, the once-only principle is applied in several areas. The Stelsel van Basisregistraties (Basic Registries System) was founded in 2003 and comprises 10 basic registries containing general information on companies and individuals, such as company names, personal addresses, cadastral information, income and registration information for motor vehicles. This enables businesses and citizens to provide this data only once. The system includes both open and closed registers where information is only accessible to those who need it for their work.
Regarding the once-only principle for private individuals, the Dutch tax office (Belastingdienst) introduced the prefilled tax returns in 2014 and made them standard in 2016. Because tax data from different databases is automatically merged and added to tax forms, users don't have to manually fill in tax forms. In healthcare, the once-only principle is reflected in the electronic exchange of medical data. Healthcare providers can exchange relevant patient information electronically, for example through the Landelijk Schakelpunt. This is only allowed when the data are needed for treatment and, in most cases, when the patient has given prior consent. Patients can also use a personal health environment to retrieve copies of medical data from different healthcare providers and view them in one place.
Critics in the Netherlands see the risk of abuse and invasion of privacy in the event of burglary of the system by crackers. In that case, very sensitive medical information can be exposed. Such information is highly sensitive to privacy and can cause major harm to victims.
Belgium Belgium adopted its own law on once-only in 2014. The law requires the federal government's public administrations to retrieve all available data from official registers with a unique identification feature instead of asking citizens and companies to make this data available more than once. The implementation of the law is facilitated by the system of basic registers and the eID system, which provides each data holder with a unique identification feature. This will allow public administrations to exchange data and give individuals and businesses access to public electronic services. The system also enables citizens to know at any time which organisation has accessed their data.
In the area of business services, a number of common transactions (e. g. registration of company name and address, withholding tax and social security contributions from wages) can be carried out online using pre-entered forms. The administrative burden of setting up a business is also considered low due to the extensive re-use of data from public sector databases.