Design of the sectoral rollout of AGOV
Pursuant to Article 11 paragraph 3 of the Federal Act of 17 March 2023 on the Use of Electronic Means for the Fulfilment of Government Tasks (EMOTA; SR 172.019), federal ICT resources such as AGOV may be made available to cantons and municipalities as well as to organisations and persons governed by public or private law, insofar as they are responsible for implementing federal law. They may also be made available for the implementation of cantonal law if:
- a. these resources are simultaneously provided for the fulfilment of tasks by federal authorities;
- b. the fulfilment of the core tasks of the federal authority concerned is not impaired; and
- c. no significant additional material or personnel resources are required.
EMOTA therefore does not restrict the use of AGOV exclusively to authorities in the narrower sense. It also enables AGOV to be used by public-law or private-law organisations that are “ close to the authorities ” and that implement federal law or, under certain conditions, cantonal law. The provision thus takes account of the heterogeneous institutional arrangements through which public tasks are carried out in Switzerland.
For various reasons, a need may arise to use AGOV beyond this scope. Any corresponding sectoral expansion of AGOV is subject to the relevant constitutional principles governing restrictions on fundamental rights, in particular economic freedom. This requires, in particular, a legal basis, a clear public interest and a proportionate design of the intervention. As digitalisation progresses, such expansion should be reviewed and further developed in compliance with these framework conditions: broad enough for AGOV to contribute optimally to Switzerland’s digital prosperity, yet sufficiently limited to preserve economic freedom.
For login and authentication systems, drawing this boundary is particularly challenging. The benefits of a shared solution increase as its use becomes more widespread (network effect). The more authorities and affiliated institutions use the same trusted authentication solution, the fewer parallel accounts, different login procedures and technical integrations are required. However, a government infrastructure must not expand into remote private-sector and commercial areas without a sufficient public interest and without respecting the principle of proportionality.
The limits on expansion described here apply to the systems and organisations that use AGOV as an authentication service or connect AGOV to their systems and applications. For these applications, AGOV is available to people worldwide and may be used for private or professional purposes, including on behalf of an organisation.
The legal framework
Further expansion may be enabled by specific sectoral legislation. Such legislation can make AGOV available in areas that go beyond the scope opened up by EMOTA, provided that there is a sufficient public interest in using a government authentication infrastructure.
This expansion is essential for Switzerland’s digital transformation. Digital processes are characterised in particular by the fact that they do not take place solely within vertically organised silos, but also horizontally across different organisations. Processes and data flows are designed end-to-end across authorities, levels of government, institutions and organisational forms. This makes it possible to achieve the objectives of efficiency, quality and user-friendliness. The legal boundaries governing an infrastructure do not always coincide with the functional boundaries of the processes it is intended to support.
Where one system within the same process is allowed to use AGOV and the next system is not, additional accounts, changing login procedures and breaks in the process chain arise. Such breaks cannot always be avoided. However, they should not remain solely because the legal framework has failed to keep pace with the development of digital processes.
An expansion of AGOV based on specific sectoral legislation must be neither blanket nor unlimited. It is appropriate where seamless use creates a clear public benefit, improves security and usability, and is compatible with an appropriate distinction from the market.
From today’s perspective, the boundaries for expansion need to be broadened primarily in three areas.
Healthcare sector
In healthcare, an authentication gap must not arise between the health record and the primary systems used by service providers.
The law must govern the use of AGOV in healthcare in a way that prevents processes which belong together from being split at a system boundary. A legal opening that permits AGOV for the health record but ends at its boundary would be too narrow.
For the people concerned, the health record and the primary systems are parts of one continuous care process. Differences in the legal classification of the systems involved must not, without an objective reason, require several accounts and login procedures within that process.
The legal bases must therefore enable AGOV to be used in directly connected primary systems where this serves healthcare delivery and is objectively justified.
This is not about opening AGOV generally to the healthcare market. It is about preventing an authentication gap between healthcare processes that belong together.
Higher education system
AGOV should be capable of being used throughout the higher education sector. A recognised higher education institution should not be excluded solely because it is privately rather than publicly run.
The relevant considerations are its integration into Switzerland’s recognised higher education system, the specific use case and the connection with a public purpose. Where public higher education institutions may use AGOV but private institutions may not, a boundary arises within the same education and research landscape that is difficult to justify on substantive grounds.
Students, researchers and teaching staff move between higher education institutions, public funding instruments, mobility programmes, administrative procedures and other public services. Different authentication environments make these transitions more difficult and prevent end-to-end processes.
The necessary sector-specific legal bases should therefore also enable recognised private higher education institutions to use AGOV. Private ownership alone must not be a reason for exclusion.
Specialised service providers at the interface with government
A third area concerns specialised service providers that facilitate digital transitions between private individuals and public authorities.
Not every commercial service with some connection to a public authority should be able to use AGOV. Some services, however, are functionally closely connected with an administrative procedure and form part of the digital process chain between a person and the state.
Consider a tax return service through which a taxpayer authenticates with AGOV, prepares the tax return and compiles the required documents. If the resulting delivery or transmission service is not permitted to use AGOV, continuous authentication breaks down precisely at the transition to the public authority.
Such cases require a sector-specific legal opening subject to clear conditions. The use of AGOV must be directly linked to a defined administrative procedure, provide a concrete benefit to the people concerned, and comply with binding security and data protection requirements.
Access must be governed by objective and competitively neutral criteria. Comparable providers must be able to obtain access under comparable conditions. The use of AGOV must neither appear to constitute a state endorsement of a business model nor give individual companies an unjustified advantage.
In such cases, the state provides an authentication service for a clearly defined transition to an administrative procedure. It does not thereby assume responsibility for the commercial service or endorse its substance.
Historical parallels
The controlled expansion of a state digital infrastructure beyond its original field of use is not a new phenomenon.
The closest comparison is sedex. The platform was created as part of the modernisation of the population census and has been operational since 15 January 2008. It was subsequently opened to numerous additional fields of use. Today, sedex is used by more than 8,000 organisational units across more than 80 domains, including the Confederation, cantons, municipalities, companies and associations.
sedex illustrates a possible path for further development: an infrastructure is created for a clearly defined government purpose. Over time, it may become apparent that it can also deliver substantial benefits in other areas. Its expansion then does not take place in an uncontrolled manner, but domain by domain, subject to defined conditions and in compliance with the legal bases required in each case, which may need to be created where necessary.
The comparison does not mean that AGOV should have the same group of participants as sedex. It does, however, show that the original field of use of a state infrastructure does not necessarily determine its final reach.
A second, less direct parallel is the Swiss social security number. It is an identifier, not an authentication system. The comparison therefore concerns not its technical function but its legal and political development.
The OASI number (AHV) was created for a clearly defined purpose under social security law. With digitalisation, it also became increasingly important for other administrative processes. Accordingly, sector-specific legal bases were gradually established to allow for a broader scope of use. Its wider systematic use by public authorities was not permitted solely on the basis of its practical usefulness, but was expressly regulated by law. The relevant provisions entered into force on 1 January 2022.
This is where the parallel with AGOV lies. The technical value of an infrastructure is not by itself a sufficient basis for its expansion. Where the original legal framework is insufficient, a political decision and a democratically legitimised legal basis are required.
The political and legislative process
The development of AGOV’s sectoral boundaries must be initiated politically at an early stage. Legislative processes take time. They must not begin only when a specific digitalisation project fails directly because the necessary legal basis is missing.
The Confederation, the cantons and the sectors concerned should therefore establish an ongoing joint process. Existing and foreseeable blocked use cases should be identified, assessed against consistent criteria and politically prioritised. The necessary legislative work must then be initiated in good time.
In each case, it is particularly important to assess whether there is a clear public interest, whether the use of AGOV enables a seamless digital process, whether a government authentication service is necessary and proportionate, and how the interference with economic freedom associated with that government service can be designed in a proportionate manner.
An entirely new legal logic should not be developed for every individual case. Recurring situations must lead to clear and consistent principles: for institutions carrying out public tasks, for recognised institutions in regulated sectors, and for specialised service providers at clearly defined interfaces with government.
AGOV should not be expanded merely because expansion is technically possible. It should be capable of being used where a shared state-provided authentication infrastructure delivers a clear public benefit, connects processes that belong together and prevents unnecessary login breaks.
Likewise, the use of AGOV should remain limited where there is no sufficient government purpose and no market intervention is necessary.
The boundaries of expansion should therefore be drawn neither as broadly as possible nor as narrowly as possible.
They should be drawn correctly.
This means preserving the public-sector core, enabling sensible transitions, and developing the legal bases where current boundaries split processes that belong together and thereby impede Switzerland’s digital prosperity.
AGOV’s sectoral expansion is not expansion for its own sake. It is an ongoing political task aimed at creating a coherent digital Switzerland.