Shaping AGOV’s sectoral expansion
Introduction
AGOV’s sectoral expansion is determined by the applicable legal bases. Its reach is therefore subject to legally defined boundaries. These boundaries must be drawn sensibly and reviewed and developed as digital transformation progresses: broadly enough for AGOV to serve Switzerland’s digital prosperity as effectively as possible; narrowly enough for activities without a sufficient connection to government to remain, as a rule, a matter for the market.
Drawing this boundary is particularly demanding in the field of login and authentication systems. The value of a shared solution grows as its use expands. The more public authorities and related institutions use the same trusted authentication system, the less need there is for parallel accounts, different login procedures and separate technical integrations. At the same time, a state-provided infrastructure must not extend into remote, private-sector domains without a sufficient public purpose.
The boundaries discussed here apply to the systems and organisations that use AGOV as an authentication service. There are no sectoral restrictions for end users. AGOV is available to people worldwide and may be used in private or professional contexts, including on behalf of an organisation.
The legal core
The legal foundation is the Federal Act on the Use of Electronic Means to Carry Out Official Tasks, known in German as EMBAG. It creates the basis for public authorities outside the Federal Administration to use federal ICT resources, particularly in connection with the implementation of federal law. Swiss public authorities that use AGOV as an authentication service therefore form the core of its sectoral expansion.
A first extension of this core may include institutions outside the administration itself that perform public tasks within a legally defined framework, for example by implementing federal law. The institution’s legal form or ownership is not the only determining factor; its function and the legal basis for that function also matter.
Further expansion may be enabled through sector-specific legal bases. These may make AGOV available in areas beyond the scope opened by EMBAG where the use of a state-provided authentication infrastructure nevertheless serves a sufficient public purpose.
This expansion is essential to Switzerland’s digital transformation. Digital processes cross public authorities, levels of government, institutions and organisational forms. The legal boundaries of an infrastructure therefore do not always coincide with the functional boundaries of the processes it is intended to support.
Where one system may use AGOV but the next system within the same process may not, additional accounts, changing login procedures and breaks in the process chain result. Such breaks cannot always be avoided. They should not, however, be maintained solely because the legal bases have failed to keep pace with the development of digital processes.
The expansion of AGOV through sector-specific legal bases must be neither blanket nor unlimited. It is appropriate where continuous use delivers a clear public benefit, improves security and usability, and is compatible with an appropriate boundary between government and the market.
From today’s perspective, the boundaries need to be extended above all in three areas.
The legal core
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.
The legal core
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 development path. An infrastructure is created for a clearly limited public purpose. Over time, it becomes apparent that it can also deliver substantial value in other areas. Its expansion then takes place not without control, but domain by domain, under defined conditions and with due regard for the legal bases required in each case.
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 social security number was created for a clearly defined purpose under social insurance law. With digitalisation, it also became important for other administrative processes. Its broader systematic use by public authorities was not authorised solely because it was practically useful; it 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.
Each case should be assessed in particular to determine whether there is a clear public purpose, whether the use of AGOV enables a continuous digital process, whether a state-provided authentication service is necessary and proportionate, and how areas without a sufficient connection to government can be distinguished from the market.
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.
Equally, AGOV should remain limited where there is no sufficient public purpose and a service can be left to the market.
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.