Once-Only Principle. Once only principle (OOP) is defined by the European Commission in the EU eGovernment Action Plan 2016-2020 (European Commission, 2016) as “public administrations should ensure that citizens and businesses supply the same information only once to a public administration. Public administration offices take action if permitted to internally re-use this data, in due respect of data protection rules, so that no additional burden falls on citizens and businesses” (p. 4). The “once only” principle means that citizens and businesses should supply information only once to a public administrations within the EU. Public administrations act to share needed data across organisational borders, so that no additional burden falls on citizens and businesses. The OOP supports the concept of user centricity. It focuses on the reduction of administrative burden of users by re-organising public sector internal processes rather than making users to adapt to the public sector’s internal processes (Lethbridge, 2015; Xxxxx et al., 2016). The implementation of OOP is expected to bring numerous benefits: cost savings and time savings, reducing administrative burden and bureaucracy (Xxxxxx, 2016), reducing costs for businesses and fulfilling legal obligations faster while improving the accuracy of the same data (Xxxxx et al., 2016). Applying the once-only principle on the EU level is estimated to generate total net savings of around €5 billion per year (Tallinn Digital Summit, 2017). Why is it relevant to Government 3.0? The OOP can simplify public services by reducing administrative burden and improving cross-border cooperation. In future, the OOP will become one of the important principles for managing data across borders as the single digital gateway regulation6 requires.
