Press release ForumPA 2018

IO, the project to develop the public administration services app.

The Digital Transformation Team at the Presidency of the Council of Ministers announces the launch of IO, a project to develop a public services app which will allow citizens to manage all their interactions with public administrations. A test phase with a selected number of citizens and administrations is set to start this summer.

Follow the project on io.italia.it - #progettoIO

Rome, 22nd May 2018 - The Digital Transformation Team of the Presidency of the Council, in collaboration with AgID (Agenzia per l’Italia Digitale), announces the birth of IO, a project to develop an experimental application that will allow citizens to manage their interactions with the public administration and access public services directly from their smartphone. A preview of the prototype and details of the project are available on io.italia.it. Thanks to the new app, every user can request and store documents and certificates, accept and make payments, as well as receive communications, messages and reminders.

“The app will make it possible to drastically reduce the time it takes to comply with public administration requirements,” affirms Diego Piacentini, Special Commissioner for the implementation of the Digital Agenda. He continues, “With this notification, payments and deadlines, operations that previously required a great deal of time, can now be completed in just few minutes.”.

The application is not currently available in app stores, as the “closed beta” phase is scheduled to start any time soon. During the summer 2018, some local and national services will also be provided through the app. In some territories, where the number and relevance of services are higher, we will invite citizens to take part in testing the application that will become part of their daily lives. With the increase in functions and services, the beta users numberwill gradually be expanded.

How will the app work?

The app will be based on the integration of other systems already in place that will converge to facilitate citizens’ experience and the operation of the public administrations which will be able to use the functionalities of the IO platform to provide all of their services.

“We are working on enabling platforms, whose components are necessary but not sufficient, to render the app fully operational,” explains Diego Piacentini. “The unique ANPR (National Resident Population Register) will permit a synchronization of all citizen data that is currently scattered throughout some 8,000 different registers. SPID will guarantee a secure and unique means of access, whilst the PagoPA payment node will become the engine of the app’s digital purse.”

What are the advantages for the Public Administrations?

IO starts from the analysis of the citizens’ needs yet offers an advantage for all public entities that provide digital services. Thanks to the integration of PagoPA, ANPR and SPID, the project makes most of the functions available which are already common to all Public Administration services.

“IO is an open project,” explains Matteo De Santi, Manager for UX/UI & Product Design of the Digital Transformation Team. “Any public entity can participate in the experiment, indeed, they are invited to do so. IO is designed with an open source logic, meaning the entire process of creating both the app and the infrastructure is completely public. Anyone can see how we are developing it and even lend a hand. Furthermore, the Digital Transformation Team is using technologies and methodologies that we hope will constitute best practices for all the digital services in Italy.”