The challenge of proving someone is who they claim to be, were born in a particular place, live at a certain address and have the legal standing to do business, cross borders, access medical care or go about life is an age old problem that has historically been dealt with by creating physical tokens. As the digital transformation of society changes expectations in the delivery of public services, and governments seek greater efficiency in response to budgetary constraints, there is an ambition to move away from face to face interactions towards digitally enabled solutions.
Digital Government in Chile – Digital Identity draws on the experience of 13 member and non-member countries (Austria, Canada, Denmark, Estonia, India, Italy, Korea, New Zealand, Norway, Portugal, Spain, United Kingdom and Uruguay) to establish an analytical framework for understanding how to develop and implement a digital identity (DI) approach that supports the transformation of government. The study aims to support the Government of Chile in enhancing their approach to DI as a piece of core digital government infrastructure and an enabler of improved service delivery. It uses a framework that covers the foundations for identity in terms of existing national identity infrastructure, policies and governance, technical solutions, the factors which impact adoption within the public sector and citizens, and the ways in which DI can create greater transparency of the working of government, and empower citizens through greater control of their data.
In providing concrete and actionable policy recommendations to underpin the effectiveness of DI efforts this study represents the third report completed by the OECD Secretariat to support the Government of Chile transition to a digital government. The Chilean Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency (Ministerio Secretaría General de la Presidencia, MINSEGPRES) and the Chilean Ministry of Finance (Ministerio de Hacienda) have demonstrated the vision to build a government for the 21st century in working with the Secretariat to develop their approach first to the question of governance with the 2016 study Digital Government in Chile: Strengthening the Institutional and Governance Framework.
Digital Government in Chile – Digital Identity is complemented by the Study Digital Government in Chile – Making the Digital Transformation Sustainable and Long-Lasting, which looks at creating sustainable and strategic change, and a report that will focus on revamping Chile’s service delivery strategy.
Key policy recommendations
Build Chile’s DI on the existing infrastructure provided by the Civil Registry Service of Chile (Servicio de Registro Civil e Identificación, SRCeI) and the Cédula de Identidad. As a result Chile does not need to pursue the generation of validated identities with the private sector.
Ensure the focus on DI within the Government’s Digital Transformation Strategy is sustainable through the provision of long term financial and political commitment.
Identify or create a senior responsible role with responsibility to shape and deliver identity according to the vision established by the Government’s Digital Transformation Strategy.
Consider the design of identity management (both physical and digital) as an end-to-end process throughout a citizen’s life from birth, through life and at death. This should consider the future possibilities of technology in the physical identity card, creating the conditions to iterate the service, and ensure a clear understanding of the needs of users both within and outside government.
Prioritise development of ClaveÚnica to support putting the citizen in control of their data and being able to grant, and revoke, permissions to access and use it.
Reach an understanding of the identity needs for businesses and develop a shared roadmap with the relevant organisations for the future state of DI in general. This may need to include the convergence of business and citizen DI and the transition of users to consolidate usage around a single approach.
Identify priority private sector services for the use of ClaveÚnica and establish a working partnership to ensure ClaveÚnica works for the private sector as well as the public sector.
Establish the adequate legal and regulatory framework to manage the use of ClaveÚnica credentials to access private sector services, particularly where that opens the possibility of personal data being reused.
Explore with regional partners how interoperability of identity can facilitate cross-border services and meets the needs of Chilean residents abroad.
Use the expansion of ClaveÚnica as an opportunity to provide citizens with digital literacy and digital skills training through ChileAtiende and other face to face locations whilst people are activating their ClaveÚnica for the first time.
Include DI as an explicit topic in spend controls, quality assurance processes, design guidelines and training and capacity building. This is to maximise awareness and adoption within government and avoid the development of duplicate solutions.
Make funding available to meet the needs of government teams in seeing ClaveÚnica as a reliable and respected service. This should ensure the design of ClaveÚnica’s technical solution is easy to implement and supported by ongoing reference materials, guidance and, where necessary, consultancy. It should also include the necessary support to service teams in producing clear cost-benefit analysis and rationale for identifying return on investment when making business cases for implementation and adoption.
Review the mechanisms by which public agencies agree to exchange data and provide guidance and boilerplate templates to support a more efficient process. This should complement efforts to implement interoperability standards across both legacy and newly developed systems.
Identify Key Performance Indicators relating to the time and cost involved in providing non-DI enabled services to provide a baseline for measuring, comparing and demonstrating the benefist of implementing DI. Publish this as Open Government Data and within the performance dashboards detailing the quality of service provision in Chile.
