The Once-Only Principle in the European Union – A Citizens’ Perspective

Abstract

The European Union is creating a Digital Single Market which en- tails the provision of cross-border eGovernment services. One part is the implementation of the Once-Only Principle (OOP) which proposes several benefits for citizens, businesses and the public authorities. The principle states that public administrations should collect data and in- formation of citizens only once and afterwards share this data with other administrative bodies if needed. The intention of the OOP is to reduce the administrative burden in citizen-government interactions. In this study interviews with students enrolled in higher education who have had experienced different cross-border administrative tasks in multiple European countries are conducted and analyzed. The re- search goal is to investigate their perception towards the OOP. By qualitatively analyzing these interviews, insights and hypotheses about how the OOP is perceived by citizens are concluded. The results show that trust in services and authorities is extremely important for the acceptance of cross-border data sharing and an important means to counter concerns regarding privacy and data protection. The results also show that trust is closely related to transparency about the flow and ownership of data as well as the usability of digital services. Based on the analysis of the interviews four propositions that are relevant for both practical implementation and for scientific research on the OOP are formulated and set in relation to each other. It is shown, that among others, trust as well as transparency play an important role for the OOP with regards to citizens.