Periodic Reporting for period 2 - mGov4EU (Mobile Cross-Border Government Services for Europe)
Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-12-31
The “Mobile Cross-Border Government Services for Europe” (mGov4EU) project pushes forward cross-border Government services in building on the foundation provided by the Single Digital Gateway Regulation (SDGR) (EU) 1024/2012 and the eIDAS Regulation (EU) 910/2014 by advancing both for a mobile-device use we nowadays naturally expect. The problem addressed is that such cross-border services can be cumbersome if lots of data and evidences need to be provided. By making extensive use of automatic attribute provision and SDGR’s once-only principle, complemented by mobile identification, the burdensome filling of complex forms gets replaced by user-controlled and user-consented releasing of authoritative data. mGov4EU has, therefore, researched, designed, implemented, and evaluated an open ecosystem for secure mobile government services to be used across Europe and beyond. This has been accomplished by combining and enhancing the existing eIDAS Layer and SDGR Layer with modules for mobile devices that are generic enough so that they can be re-used in the emerging and thus still heterogeneous European mobile-government landscape. mGov4EU has provided a trustworthy federation of collaborative platforms, facilitating co-delivery, reuse, and trustworthy provision of accessible and easy-to-use public services. It has implemented the once-only, digital-by-default and mobile-first principles in a user-centric and user-friendly manner to support and complement the practical implementation of eIDAS and SDGR. The main result are building blocks that can be used to develop services. The main ones are the eID, the e-Signature, the SDG, and the Wallet building block. They have been successfully validated in three pilots i-voting, smart mobility, and electronic signatures.
The mGov4EU project started with a comprehensive analysis of the state-of-the-art. This covered areas as diverse as mobile identity, mobile government and cross-border data exchange, all relevant to the project’s objectives. In gaining in-depth knowledge of the state of play, a reference architecture has been established which defines the core components on electronic identity, electronic signature, single digital gateway elements and a digital identity wallet. This reference architecture has been further refined and modularised to building blocks that shall support the implementation of cross-border use cases. mGov4EU itself aimed at demonstrating such use cases through pilots spanning areas as broad as i-voting, smart mobility, or electronic signatures. The project has, thus, derived comprehensive and concrete requirements stemming from the pilot domain and these requirements have been mapped to the building blocks. This resulted in the implementation of four software building blocks; eIDAS-based cross-border authentication, SDGR-based cross-border data retrieval, cross-border e-signature solutions, and identity wallet. These building blocks have been tested in three concrete pilots, i-voting, smart mobility, and electronic signatures. Pilots and buildings blocks got iteratively improved following the learnings from the evaluation activities.
As a horizontal activity, the evaluation framework and privacy and ethical aspects have been developed. This comprised work on the pilot evaluation that developed trans-disciplinary indicators and security evaluation where potential candidate methodologies have been screened. In order to address ethics, gender, and legal aspects, an ethics and gender management framework has been established. Further horizontal aspects were communication and dissemination, where electronic channels like the Web and social media have mainly been targeted and several scientific publications have been made. The project results have been presented in a symposium as a final event, as well have been published in a book.
As a horizontal activity, the evaluation framework and privacy and ethical aspects have been developed. This comprised work on the pilot evaluation that developed trans-disciplinary indicators and security evaluation where potential candidate methodologies have been screened. In order to address ethics, gender, and legal aspects, an ethics and gender management framework has been established. Further horizontal aspects were communication and dissemination, where electronic channels like the Web and social media have mainly been targeted and several scientific publications have been made. The project results have been presented in a symposium as a final event, as well have been published in a book.
mGov4EU promised unprecedented user journeys in cross-border eGovernment services by using our mobile devices as we nowadays expect. Therefore, the project provided building blocks and modules both for mobile devices and for back-end services that are generic enough to be integrated into applications. In using the eIDAS and SDGR infrastructure, user-centric and user-controlled identification and provisioning of authoritative data using a mobile wallet are supported. These modules and building blocks have been validated through pilots carried out by the project.