THE DIGITAL BAROMETER OF THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT

The continual improvement in our standard of living is resulting in an increased number of commercial transactions. This is in turn causing an increase in the volumes of administrative documents, first of all invoices. In Belgium, one billion invoices are sent every year. Automated processing of these invoices would save the equivalent of 3.5 billion euros per year. So this is an important challenge.

The broad adoption of e-invoicing described above will first of all require a significant change in the IT products and services available, which in turn requires sufficient demand to be in place to justify the required investments. In a nutshell, the challenge of broad adoption of e-invoicing is both complex and promising.

Belgium's public authorities, at all levels of government, account for 16% of GDP. They do business with an extremely wide range of economic players, so they are the most affected by the lack of harmonisation and standardisation between the existing e-invoicing solutions. As a result they have the motivation and also the resources to encourage providers of IT products and services to make changes in the products and services they provide that will promote broad adoption of e-invoicing. The benefits to them from this change could amount to one billion euros per year.

In this context, authorities at various levels have been working together since 2012 on the introduction of measures to promote the broad adoption of e-invoicing. At the federal level, e-invoicing is part of the "Digital Economy" section of the "Digital Belgium" plan being promoted by Minister De Croo. Working closely with the Minister and the other administrations, and following a pilot phase carried out in 2013-2014, The Digital Transformation Office (DTO) of the FPS BOSA, which is responsible for studying the IT-related aspects of this issue, showed that an interoperability framework (PEPPOL) exists which could make broader adoption possible within a reasonable time. This body is carrying out an awareness campaign that is addressing a number of groups, beginning with the IT sector and government bodies, with the aim of getting these groups to join the framework too. For more information about the PEPPOL framework and its use in the Belgian context, consult the web page of the Belgian PEPPOL authority (which is currently only available in English).

Mercurius is a fundamental element in this programme. Mercurius is a platform for "business to Government" transactions. It provides a uniform interface for all e-invoicing by businesses to government bodies at every level of government. Thanks to its perfect alignment with the PEPPOL framework, every business that is able to e-invoice public authorities will also be able to directly e-invoice any other (private) customer once the framework starts being widely used. It has a portal, whose primary function is to allow every business to monitor the forwarding and processing of its e-invoices to all government bodies in a way that is centralised and completely reliable. What is more, suppliers that do not yet have suitable IT equipment will be able to submit their invoices using a form on this portal - until they are able to obtain their own equipment. For more information about Mercurius, please consult the Mercurius portal welcome page. It also contains links to a number of other relevant sources of information

From 19 April 2019, Directive 2014/55/EU will come into force. Under this Directive, public authorities will be obliged to accept any e-invoice that is compliant with the European standard developed by the European Committee for Standardisation. This obligation is in line with the national policies described above. The Mercurius platform will allow public authorities to limit the technical difficulties that may result from this obligation. The directive is currently being transposed into Belgian law.

Identification today

To gain access to online government applications, citizens now have a range of reliable identification technologies - digital keys - available to them through CSAM (the gateway to the various government administrations) engineered and hosted by the FPS Policy & Support (BOSA).

As a citizen, you can login to the various online applications of government administrations using a variety of digital keys such as the electronic identity card or a derived digital key such as a token, a time-based one-time password (TOTP), an SMS (text message) one-time password or the eID unconnected solution.

To activate these derived digital keys, in all cases an initial identification of the electronic identity card by card reader is required . Via these digital keys, citizens can also login via a smartphone. However, this is fairly complicated and not very user-friendly.

Tomorrow’s mobile identification

Which is why we are now offering users mobile identification technology that swiftly and easily allows them to log into online government applications using their smartphone or tablet. This does not require a derived digital key, which greatly simplifies the entire process.

Offering mobile identification technology is an essential lever to put in place a digital and connected public administration and one that ranks high on the list of priorities of the “Digital Belgium” plan put forward by Minister De Croo.

To enable mobile identification, the FPS P&S has worked up the Royal Decree of 22 October 2017. The RD sets out the rules governing the recognition of private electronic identification services, and mobile services in particular. Working with private partners allows the government to keep costs under control and to foster innovation. These external identification services, which are developed and operated by private sector companies, are to be added to the CSAM platform devised by the FPS P&S and come in complement to the set of digital keys that already exists.

The Royal Decree outlines out the recognition criteria as well as the procedure and the rights and obligations involved in recognition.

The recognition of these private services delivers added value for citizens in that it they enable them to use the same identification service as the one they are using to log into private applications, such as their online bank account, online shops, etc.

Courtesy of these mobile identification apps, all Belgians are now able to unambiguously provide proof of their identity online (I am who I say I am), whether transacting payment at a web shop or completing/sending in government forms.

Today, a number of online identification applications engineered by private players are already available on the market. Other private businesses are working hard developing their apps.

All parties who wish to have a private electronic identification service recognised and licensed are to submit an application for recognition. Further details on this matter are available from https://bosa.belgium.be/en/news/royal-decree-of-22-october-2017. The first private electronic identification service is expected to be recognised shortly. We will keep you posted on this website.

The intelligent web forms (IWF) for preparing online forms with pre-loaded details make life easier on citizens and businesses when calling on the services of the federal government, saving time and the need to look things up.

The so-called intelligent web forms automatically display the details available on-screen, dispensing with the need for citizens or business owners to enter these details all over again. This involves the kind of information contained in the National Register, or information previously entered. Citizens or business owners merely need to complete the fields asking them for new information. Subject to permission from the user (opt-in), information is retrieved from various sources without them having to look up this information.

This application was built in such a way that it produces a snowball effect: each time citizens and business owners consent to having newly added details stored, this acts to amplify the collection of available details, ramping up the potential for reuse and stepping up the amount of time gained on new forms. As a side effect, the quality and consistency of the information supplied is only expected to improve.

Applied to a few dozen or hundred forms that are completed each year by thousands of citizens and business owners, this will secure substantial time gains for individuals and administrations alike.

ONLY ONCE

The preloaded electronic forms are part of the implementation of the ‘Only Once Act’. This Act has been in effect in full since 2014 and ensures the implementation of the principle of the once-only collection of data by federal public services. To be able to use these pre-loaded online forms, government website users will need to identify themselves using their electronic identity card, a one-time password generated for temporary use, an unconnected card reader or token.

OPEN SOURCE: A CHEAPER ALTERNATIVE

The FPS DG Digitale Transformatie (Policy & Support) is making this application available to the federal public services who in turn get to use it as part of their service delivery to citizens and businesses. The proposed solution runs on open source products, dispensing with costly software licences in the process. Using open standards ensures that the forms are able to communicate with a wide array of different systems already in place.

The application is designed in such a way that creating extra forms is relatively quick and cost-efficient. The forms themselves have been laid out in such a way that they also work properly on tablets and smartphones and are accessible to disabled users.

Find out more about intelligent web forms

FEATURES

Users

All departments at federal public services, agencies and institutions that request information from or supply information to citizens or business owners.

REQUIREMENTS

Procedure: