Assess the possibility of applying the once-only principle for citizens in a cross-border context

Potential of action

The once-only principle in the context of public sector means that citizens and businesses should supply information only once to a public administration. Public administration offices take action to internally share this data, so that no additional burden falls on citizens and businesses. The application of this principle, in compliance with data protection legislation, would likely generate an annual net saving at the EU level of around EUR 5 billion per year by 2017[1]. Implementing the Once Only principle across borders would further contribute towards the efficiency of the Digital Single Market.

Description of action

The Commission is calling for networking and discussing the possible implementation of the cross-border application of the once-only principle for citizens, in compliance with current and future EU data protection rules. The Coordination and Support Action will be funded through the H2020 research and innovation framework programme and is likely to start by the end of 2016. In addition, further actions to support the implementation of the "once-only" principle have been launched under the ISA programme and continue under the ISA2 programme; the best practices and recommendations for base registers management and the semantic specifications for description of public services (essential for the implementation of coherent and inter-connectable catalogues of services).

A study to understand the policy options and their possible impacts of an EU-wide digital once-only principle for citizens and businesses is expected to deliver results by the end 2016.

Main responsible at the European Commission: DG CONNECT

Target date: 2016

Status: Completed. The coordination and Support Action has been launched on 1st of November 2016 (see SCOOP4C)
The initiative, as proposed by the Commission in the Action Plan, has been achieved. This does not however, mean that the action is fully implemented across the EU.

More info (website): http://ec.europa.eu/research/participants/portal/desktop/en/opportunities/h2020/topics/3074-co-creation-05-2016.html

[1] http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/PDF/?uri=CELEX:52015SC0100&from=EN