On 6 December 2022, Mr Jonathan J. Attia, French CTO for European Single Digital Gateway in the inter-ministerial directorate for digital (DINUM) in the French government, presented the Once-Only Technical system during the SEMIC 2022 conference.

The Once-Only Technical system will connect EU public authorities, so they can exchange official documents and data at the citizen’s request. It puts into practice the Once-Only Principle, which states that citizens should not be forced to provide information to authorities if another authority already holds that information in electronic format.

Mr Attia noted that the implementation of the Once-Only Technical System is a large-scale project involving all 27 EU Member States. Notably, he informed participants that this Technical System will bring together over 100,000 local and regional authorities and over 5000 higher education institutions across the EU.

Specifically concerning the efforts of French authorities, Mr Attia noted that the French project team has dedicated over 300 working days to the Once-Only Technical System and the wider Single Digital Gateway initiative, including more than 360 hours of workshops with the European Commission. With 21 Relevant administrative procedures defined in the Single Digital Gateway Regulation, French authorities are looking at achieving more than 2600 European technical interconnections with over 5200 network paths.

Overall, he concluded that the Once-Only Technical System represents a substantial workload both for DINUM and for the French administrations, whose involvement, cooperation and responsiveness are essential.

Mr Attia also made reference to the eDelivery building block, presented during the same event by Mr Bogdan Dumitriu from the Directorate General for Informatics (DIGIT). eDelivery enables the Once-Only Technical System in a fundamental way. The Once-Only Technical System will reuse eDelivery access points to create a virtual secure network. Evidence available through Once-Only Technical System can be made available to other eDelivery-based domains without technical barriers, promoting a “once-only” by design approach.

The inter-ministerial directorate for digital (DINUM) supports French ministries in their digital transformation. It advises the government and develops services and shared resources such as the inter-ministerial network of the State, FranceConnect, data.gouv.fr or api.gouv.fr. The DINUM is a service of the Prime Minister, placed under the authority of the Minister of Transformation and Public Services.

Visit the Once-Only Hub to learn details about how the Once-Only Technical System shall operate, how the Member States and Commission are implementing the system and why it is important for the EU and the European Single Market.