4 guides
Interoperability
What it takes for public bodies, and the systems they run, to work together: shared rules, shared processes, shared meaning and shared technology.
The guides
Semantic interoperability
Why shared meaning, not just shared formats, decides whether public bodies can use each other's data.
02The European Interoperability Framework
The EU's common set of principles, models and recommendations for public services that work together.
03The once-only principle
Ask people for information once, then reuse it lawfully: the principle and the EU system behind it.
04The Interoperable Europe Act
The 2024 EU law that turns voluntary interoperability guidance into shared governance and duties for public bodies.
Why interoperability is more than technology
Connecting two systems is usually the easy part. The hard part is everything around the connection: whether the law allows the data to be shared, whether the two organisations agree on who does what, and whether a field called “address” or “date of birth” means the same thing on both sides.
That is why European frameworks describe interoperability in layers, legal, organisational, semantic and technical, with governance holding them together. A problem at any one layer can stop a service working, however good the technology is.
Why it matters to people using services
When public bodies can’t work together, the cost lands on citizens and businesses. They fill in the same details again, carry certificates from one office to another and wait while records are checked by hand. Interoperability is what lets a service reuse information that government already holds, with the right permissions, instead of asking for it again.
How these guides fit together
Start with semantic interoperability, which explains the layers and why shared meaning is so often the missing piece. The other three guides cover the European frameworks and laws that put those ideas into practice. For the data standards behind them, see linked data; for the services they make possible, see digital public services.
Articles on interoperability
Shorter, practical pieces that build on these guides.
Why “address” is the hardest word in government data
An address field can hold four different ideas. Why that breaks matching, and the three fixes that work.
Read the articleMoving to another EU country: what the once-only system changes
What the EU's evidence exchange lets someone moving country skip, step by step, and where paper still wins.
Read the articleFive questions to ask before you build a new public register
Whether a new register becomes a trusted source or another stale copy is decided by five early questions.
Read the articleInteroperability assessments: a plain-English checklist for smaller public bodies
When the Interoperable Europe Act requires an assessment, and a step-by-step way for a small team to do one.
Read the articleWhat the EU Digital Identity Wallet means for public services
Three jobs the EU wallet creates for public bodies: accept it at sign-in, issue attestations and ask for less.
Read the articleYour first algorithm inventory: preparing for the AI Act and the ATRS
The fields worth recording for every AI and algorithmic tool, and how they map to EU and UK duties.
Read the articleCode lists: the unglamorous fix for messy public data
Why agreed lists of values beat clever matching, and how to reuse, publish and maintain them.
Read the article