A powered by digi.me app, enabling an authorised individual to officially register a newborn child, has won second prize at a Dutch government hackathon.
The Citizen Centricity (Regie of Gegevens) hackathon was organised by the Dutch Interior Affairs and Economic Affairs ministries, who are together looking into ways that individuals can own and control their data.
Dutch citizens are legally obliged to register with their local council, and these bodies hold data ranging from name, address and date of birth to tax details, benefits payments and information on any vehicles owned. As part of this, citizens are required to register any change in circumstances.
Under GDPR, individuals have the right to request their data in an electronic format. By offering a simple automated data request process, digi.me has enabled individuals to own and control many dimensions of their digital footprint in a storage location of their choice.
In the hackathon, which took place earlier this month, 11 teams worked on solutions for data challenges around registering births or deaths on behalf of a third party.
The digi.me team chose to work on the births challenge.
The Dutch government themed application demonstrated how citizens could easily consent and share information across multiple sectors. The doctor issued the birth registration document via a hospital information system, enabling the authorised and authenticated individual (such as a parent) to submit the document, including the official source and audit trail, to the local council.
The app enabled the individual to log on to their user account within the health system and securely route the birth notification document to the digi.me account of the parent or guardian. Then, through digi.me’s Consent Access services, the data was routed securely to the local council.
One of the biggest challenges for teams was how to facilitate both individuals owning and controlling their own personal data, whilst also receiving third party data over which they had been given delegated authority. Digi.me resolved this by treating third party information sharing instructions differently from the user’s own data, effectively tying two user accounts together, but keeping the data libraries separate.
Rupert Melsom, digi.me’s VP of Business Development, said: “The use case presented was one of legal and technical complexity. The team really outperformed again, creating a great “powered by digi.me” app, all within a timeframe of 24 hours.
“It is fantastic to see how easily and quickly developers and organisations can build and launch consumer grade apps within days, as opposed to weeks or months.”
Digi.me had already taken part in another hackathon earlier this year, looking into solutions for individuals to easily consent the transfer of their citizen records from one council to another when moving home.
This use case was enriched by easily (de-)registering with a doctor’s practice following a move. The citizen’s digital journey then requested separate consent to move their medical data file from the old to new practice.
For more information on digi.me, or a copy of the demo application, please contact digi.me here.