Data Exchange Systems as a foundational layer of digital government
By David Eaves, Krisstina Rao and Kassim Vera
Digital Public Infrastructure (DPI) is an emerging term that describes a number of foundational capabilities that enable individuals to participate in society and markets as a citizen, entrepreneur, and consumer in a digital era. At the UCL Institute for Innovation and Public Purpose (IIPP), we define DPI as including digital payment systems, digital ID, and data exchange system(s) (DES). Each component plays a distinct role: digital payment systems facilitate financial transactions, digital IDs verify personal identity, and data exchange systems manage the secure flow of information across multiple platforms.
A great portion of the DPI discourse revolves around digital payment and digital ID systems. This is logical given that both components are mainly front-end, meaning the citizen is using the service directly. At present, many data exchange systems are not easily visible to citizens because they either automatically share data or use permission-based methods to do so. These systems manage a range of information, including health records, educational records, land titles, and environmental data.
What is a Data Exchange System (DES)?
The purpose of a Data Exchange System is to help organisations or individuals share data between them more efficiently. This may help reduce administrative costs or reduce “administrative burdens” often imposed on individuals, saving them the work of tracking down and sharing the same information over and over again to perform different tasks such as applying for public benefits.
As a concept, a “data exchange system” may encompass a diverse set of architectures and functionalities. In practice, one can think of data exchanges as sophisticated versions of popular consumer services such as WeTransfer, Google Drive or Dropbox which enable at least two entities (i.e. sender and receiver) to share data through a mediating platform (i.e. a cloud). Much like when you share a document on Google Drive, you grant others access to the data and possibly even permission to make edits or suggest changes. Those alterations are often tracked and timestamped, with the software maintaining a detailed revision history that shows who made changes and when. Additionally, the data may be exported in various ways enabling interoperability with other systems and facilitating how the information can be used.
A DES operates in a similar manner, but rather than sharing a document, it focuses on sharing specific pieces of structured data. Moreover, because it may deal with sensitive data, it will likely be supported by robust security protocols and access controls.
There is an enormous range of different data exchange systems implemented by public sector institutions around the world. In our first round of data scoping for DPImap.org, we found systems ranging from Sri Lanka’s now-defunct Digital Government Document Management System (DGDMS), which facilitated sharing of scanned documents among government departments to Singapore’s API Exchange (APEX Cloud), an API gateway that permits various agencies and authorised third parties, including financial institutions and healthcare providers, to securely access and utilise government-held data. In addition, our work focused on identifying relatively “generic” data exchanges that share government data across ministries, but there exist a number of sectoral specific data exchange systems — particularly in the healthcare sector — that focus on sharing data among actors within a narrower ecosystem.
Readers familiar with digital government successes may be aware of X-Road, the Estonian DES that exemplifies a highly structured approach to data exchange, enabling secure and standardised data transfers. In most countries that have an active data exchange system and publish information about their technical architecture, we saw a high adoption of X-Road’s source code. The uptake of X-Road is attributed to its strong security protocols which safeguard sensitive data transfers, its modular architecture which ensures scalability for various governmental needs, and its open-source nature which reduces costs and enhances customization for specific local requirements.
Data Exchange Systems as DPI
The combination of robust security, scalability, and flexibility is what makes DES a foundational component of digital public infrastructure. These characteristics enable DES to support a wide range of public services and facilitate seamless data exchange across various government levels and sectors. Data Exchange Systems are considered infrastructure because they transform datasets from serving a specific purpose into shared means to many ends. Such sharing of data is even more important given that increasingly, access to, and the ongoing provision of, essential or public services depends on data access. Data Exchange Systems are a critical way to simplify processes and reduce burdens on individuals.
As a result, ensuring interoperability and accessibility of data across different sectors (and particularly across the government/public sector) is of increasing interest to governments. While not all DES are operated by governments, our research focused on those that have oversight from a public-interest entity (for more on this, read “Digital Public Infrastructure and Public Value: What is public about DPI?”). For example, a system that permits patients’ medical records to move only between certain private hospitals is not public. In contrast, a system that uses standards and permission to allow patients to securely share their medical records with any public or private provider, with insurers, or even software applications, is more likely to be a “public” oriented data exchange.
Most DES are designed with specific goals in mind, whether to enhance internal efficiencies, secure sensitive data, or stimulate economic activities through seamless data availability. Understanding the diversity and capabilities of these systems is crucial for anyone involved in the planning, implementation, or management of digital public infrastructures.
Data exchange systems are distinguished not only by the breadth of data they manage but also by key transversal operational qualities we included in our analysis. Interoperability, for instance, allows various entities to seamlessly leverage shared information in different formats or platforms. This facilitates integrated service delivery, enhancing efficiency across the board. Scalability is another crucial feature, enabling these systems to adapt to fluctuating data demands, such as those encountered during crisis situations, ensuring resilience and continuous service.
Who can use a DES?
The DPI Map focuses primarily on multi-sectoral data exchange systems operated by national governments. However, data exchange systems (DES) exist across multiple levels and sectors of government, such as in health, agriculture, and trade. These systems are not confined to national-level operations; they also function effectively at regional and municipal levels. For instance, Chile’s Plataforma Integrada de Servicios Electrónicos del Estado (PISEE — State’s Integrated Platform for Electronic Services) illustrates this well. PISEE integrates data from a wide range of entities, including national ministries, municipalities, the judicial system, customs, and the police department.
While these entities all fall under the public sector umbrella, each has unique operational demands and requirements. To successfully incorporate such diverse entities into a DES, it is essential to first thoroughly understand their specific needs and functionalities. This approach ensures that the infrastructure can be leveraged appropriately for different ends, enabling effective and seamless data exchange. For example, PISEE includes a process where representatives from these entities engage in preliminary meetings to discuss their needs and projects. This step is crucial as it lays the foundation for tailored integration, allowing the system to accommodate the varied demands of each entity.
There are other examples of data exchange systems operated by the public sector that extend their capabilities to private entities. For example, DES like the UGhub in Uganda or IDEAL in Puerto Rico are designed to allow private organisations to access and utilise government-held data. This functionality can be particularly useful for verifying the existence of businesses, ensuring compliance with taxes, or meeting regulatory requirements.
For what purpose(s) is a DES used?
Two forces drive DES adoption. On the one hand is operational efficiency for governments. Leveraging data already collected to provision new services reduces the costs of collecting and managing data. The other is to reduce the administrative burdens on individuals. DES are often invoked to help realise and uphold the ‘Once Only’ data principle (whereby citizens and businesses provide data only once to public administration). Most of the DES we have studied so far aim to optimise data and information management across the entire government, as our focus has been in cross-sectoral national DES systems. But we found that, sectoral DES also exist– like for agriculture (i.e. the Kenyan Agricultural Data-Sharing Platform, KADSP), international trade (i.e. VUCEN in Nicaragua) or health (being the most developed sector for this infrastructure piece- see Digital Health Monitor).
More on DES coming
At the DPI Map, we have developed the ‘Measuring DPI Framework’ to analyse the attributes that define a DES’ as Digital Public Infrastructures. In future blog posts, we’ll examine the interplay between technical solutions and regulatory frameworks that ensure seamless data flow across diverse entities and discuss the variety of DES typologies — ranging from X-Road based deployments to API Gateways — highlighting their unique attributes and functional differences.
