Public Services News Proof of concept for the Citizen's Card Proof of concept for the Citizen's Card
- 07/03/2006
The presentation session for the proof of concept for the Citizen’s Card Project was held on 8th March 2006 at the Lisbon Congress Centre. This session was chaired by His Excellency the Prime Minister and was attended by other members of the Government, heads of public bodies and companies participating in the proof of concept.
Project
The Citizen’s Card project is a key project in the XVII Constitutional Government’s administrative modernisation policy and will be one of the main technological, procedural and legal levers in the modernisation strategy.
Objectives
Some of the strategic modernisation objectives are linked to the Citizen’s Card:
- Making citizens’ lives easier by having one card instead of many
- Guaranteeing more security when identifying citizens
- Harmonising the civil identification system for Portuguese citizens with European Union requirements
- Enabling the use of electronic services, using authentification methods and e-signatures
- Contribute to improving the quality of public services, marrying organisational and technological modernisation
- Rationalising resources, means and costs for the State, citizens and companies
- Fostering national competitiveness by rethinking and simplifying processes and procedures
Five in one
The Citizen’s Card will replace the current I.D. Card, Taxpayer’s Card, Social Security Card, Voter Card and National Health Service User Card. And on top of this: the new Citizen’s Card will enable secure identification and electronic authentification of citizens in their dealings with the authorities.
Functions
The Citizen’s Card will perform three major roles:
1. Visual and in-person identification of the citizen – physical document
2. Secure identification and electronic authentification of the citizen – digital document
3. Free movement and circulation within the Schengen Area – travel document
Multichannel Relationship
A) Internet Channel/ Portal do Cidadão (Citizen’s Portal) One of the Citizen’s Card’s objectives is to enable access to citizen operated e-services. Special emphasis will be focussed on virtual interaction with citizens on the Portal do Cidadão (Citizen’s Portal) with new online services (change of address data updated by all State services, for example).
B) Telephone Channel/ Contact Center. This will be a channel that allows citizens to obtain services over the telephone, using the one-time-password from their citizen’s card for identification and authentification.
C) In-person Channel /Lojas dos Cidadão (Citizens’ Bureaux)/Misc. The Citizen’s Card project will dovetail with other projects, namely the Service Quality plan both in the current Lojas do Cidadão (Citizens’ Bureaux) and in future generations of this concept.
The Citizen’s Card project is coordinated by UCMA - Coordinating Unit for Administrative Modernisation, which is supported by Knowledge Society Agency (UMIC), namely in the operational area.