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.

The institution, in coordination with other participants in the agreement, implements interoperable services in accordance with the institutional model of interoperability for the implementation of international agreements.

The implementation of international agreements involves the development of a service-oriented architecture and includes the development and implementation of a set of services. These services must be properly orchestrated within a business processes model adequate to carry out the processes described in international agreements.

The institution, in coordination with the other participants in the agreement, defines semantic interoperability resources at the international level in order to improve the automatization of data exchange operations among institutions involved in the agreement.

Using semantic interoperability in the implementation of international agreements would provide unambiguous definitions of the concepts used by the institutions involved. These mechanisms would be mainly based on metadata systems and vocabularies related to the exchanged data types.

The institution, in coordination with the others participating in the agreement, establishes an interoperability framework to implement international agreements.

Interoperability techniques enable the connection of the systems of different institutions, particularly at the international level; they are therefore among the essential technologies for implementing international social security agreements. The specific guidelines in this section are:

• Interoperability framework for international agreements
• Semantic interoperability
• Interoperable services