Transformation

Government as a Platform – Canada’s Digital Backbone

Canada is pioneering an API data exchange platform, the 'DXP', to realize a "OneGC", an ability to provide any service on any platform or device and through any trusted partner.

The ultimate vision for Canadian Digital Government is to realize a “OneGC”, an ability to provide any service on any platform or device and through any trusted partner, achieved through a strategy known as ‘Government as a Platform’.

This strategy will be realized through their ‘CDXP’ – The Canadian Digital Exchange Platform:

“a Digital Exchange Platform is being established to help enable government departments to authenticate data with each other and the outside world in a modern, secure, and unified way in an effort to deliver secure private services in a digital age.”

In our webinar session and this Treasury Board presentation the CDXP lead Teresa D’Andrea, Director for Interoperability, provides an overview of the program, setting it in relation to the Estonian X-Road system with a view to replicating their success, via an approach tailored to Canada’s requirements.

The three key foundations to the program are:

1. Digital Identity – Currently the process to access services is not intuitive, convenient, or user-friendly for Canadians, requiring separate accounts with multiple usernames and passwords. This will be address through ‘Sign In Canada’, enabling secure access to government services using a choice of trusted digital identities.

2. Canadian Data Exchange Platform (CDXP) – Currently there are numerous point-to-point connections for data sharing, which are messy and unmanageable.

The CDXP enables secure, private, real time information sharing with privacy and security “baked in”, allowing systems within and outside of government to connect and function in harmony to support digital service delivery to citizens and businesses.

3. Updated legislation and policy: Currently clients provide the same information to the government multiple times when applying for a service or benefit because some departments are unable to share this information with one another. To address this legislation will be modernized to a system of “Tell Us Once” – Any data updates provided to one government agency will be replicated to them all.

The core ethos and vision of GaaP is that every service should be accessible and consumable via an API, with the CDXP providing the enabling mechanisms of API interfaces, messaging and bulk data transfers. This would enable use case scenarios such as:

  • Automatic requests for passport renewals through travel booking systems.
  • Travel advisories integrated with online booking services.
  • Automatic registration of drones through retailers.
  • Voice-based access to election information.
  • Birth notification automatically launching benefits for the family at the municipal, provincial/territorial, and federal levels (e.g., Social Insurance Number).
  • Death event triggering updates for veteran benefits, passport status, and Old Age Security.
  • Sharing of drug recalls issued by the World Health Organization.
  • Exchanging import and export clearance data before the shipment lands.
  • Real-time sharing of arrest warrants across multiple levels of government.
  • Food exporters automatically applying for export certificates before the product even rolls off the production line.
  • Real-time submission of regulatory compliance data from various regulated sectors such as automotive, pharmaceutical, and resource development (e.g., mining).
  • Making payroll and human resources information available to employees in real time.
  • Seamless movement of employees across the GC due to integration between departmental systems.
  • Effortless employee onboarding from initial job posting to fully functioning team member.

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