An open letter on interoperability

If every public service in every jurisdiction is rebuilt in isolation, we will end up with the same walled-garden problem that plagued the first generation of private-sector SaaS. This post is an open letter to other digital-government teams: let’s not.

What interoperability looks like

A resident who moves between jurisdictions should be able to port their verified identity, their service history, and their appeals record with them — without a subject-access request, without a form, without a delay. The receiving jurisdiction should trust the sending one without re-verification.

Three things we’re committing to

1. Shared open schemas for the 40 most common service primitives (IDs, addresses, benefits, permits).
2. A common appeals protocol — any participating jurisdiction must accept any other’s audit trail.
3. A shared AI-decision audit standard, so third-party auditors can benchmark across jurisdictions.

Public-sector software that does not federate is a private service in disguise.

Dr. Naomi Ashton, Director of Service Design

An invitation

If you lead a digital-government team anywhere in the world, we would like to talk. The schemas are already drafted — we need review, not consensus. Write to us at federation@new-institution.gov.