The ICT operations of the international agreements comprise the system administration activities that enable the use of ICT systems to perform specific case transactions of the agreement.

Managing the ICT operations for the agreements involves the following main aspects:

The institution, in coordination with the other institutions participating in the international agreement, specifies information models for data exchange according to requests, administrative communications and notifications.

These models, which correspond to the usually defined “forms” to exchange data, may include: personal data, labour records, death, marriage, separation, birth, other benefits received in the host or origin country, income declarations, expenses related to procedures on individual cases, etc.

The institution, in coordination with the other institutions participating in the international agreement, specifies processes to notify changes and other relevant information related to individuals covered by the agreement.

The institution, in coordination with the other institutions participating in the international agreement, specifies the processes enabling the application of the agreement in specific cases.

This section addresses the definition of operational processes and information models related to operations between institutions implementing international social security agreements.

Information models may be based on the “data exchange forms” as usually defined.

While information models and notifications are defined at the international level, there may be operational processes (or sub-processes) to be defined at national and institutional levels.

The specific guidelines in this section are:

The institution implements measures to enforce the applicable data protection regulations on transactions of the international agreement as well as on digital certificates.

These measures are based on the corresponding national regulations as well as the conditions established in the agreement.

The institution establishes ICT-related security policies and measures to protect transactions performed in the social security agreement as well as the digital certificates.

The institution implements an authentication model to identify, authenticate and sign digital transactions between institutions participating in the international agreement.

This model replaces the handwritten signatures used in paper-based transactions and enables validation of the authenticity of the data exchanged.

The institution, in coordination with the other participants in the agreement, establishes an authentication framework to provide legally valid, efficient and secure means for the transactions carried out in the social security agreement.

This framework replaces that based on handwritten signatures used in paper-based transactions and provides the means to validate the authenticity of the electronically exchanged data.

Security and authentication are critical features for systems implementing international social security agreements. First, given the interorganizational and cross-border nature of these systems, institutions have to apply security and data protection policies and regulations. Second, the ICT-based implementation has to provide the means to validate the authenticity of the operations and to replace the handwritten signature.