Digital Citizen's Folder (Carpeta Ciudadana): transparency of public administrations towards the data subject and the exercise of citizens' right of access

Photo from Coffee Bean, Pixabay

Public Administrations are the main entities that process citizens' personal data, i.e. data subjects' personal data, and it is therefore essential to reinforce the mechanisms of transparency with regard to access to and use of their personal data. Since Public Administrations hold this data, the importance of the principle of transparency in the processing of personal data carried out by the Administration and the exercise of citizens' rights with regard to their personal data becomes particularly relevant.

Citizens can initiate administrative actions and obtain information of interest to them at the electronic offices of the different Public Administration bodies. However, this means that the citizen, in order to interact with the administration telematically, must access a multitude of electronic sites, each with its own characteristics and particularities, which means that the citizen sees the Administration's information in a disjointed, complex and difficult to follow manner.

The Digital Citizen's Folder, a service developed by the General Secretariat for Digital Administration, is the private area of citizens in their relationship with the administration that offers a single access point from which they can know and access their data held by the administration, with the possibility, if applicable, of obtaining a receipt or certificate of the same and know the use that the Public Administrations make of their data, by viewing the information that is transmitted between administrations.
 

https://carpetaciudadana.gob.es/carpeta/home

Therefore, the Citizens' Folder simplifies and facilitates the exercise of citizens' right of access by offering a unified access point where they can consult all their information, thus improving citizens' relations with the administration, promoting efficiency, transparency and enabling citizens to control their personal data held by the administration.

The data offered are grouped into different areas: education and training, citizenship, labor and social benefits, health and social affairs, personal situation and family, vehicles and transport, household and transparency. In addition, you can consult the files of different bodies of the General State Administration, of the different Autonomous Communities and of the Local Entities, whose files are beginning to be included. For example, from the "Health and social affairs" section you can access your Digital Clinical History of the National Health System (HCDSNS) through a service that interoperates internally with the Autonomous Communities.

https://carpetaciudadana.gob.es/carpeta/home

Specifically, from the "Transparency" section, each interested party can consult the data exchanged between administrations through the intermediation platform with their consent, through the option "My exchanges between administrations".

In this regard, the AEPD’s Guidelines for Implementation of the Eighth Additional Provision and Twelfth Final Provision of the LOPDGDD interprets article 28(2) of Law 39/2015, of 2 October, on Common Administrative Procedure as establishing the citizen's right not to provide data and documents already in the possession of the Public Administrations, which will use electronic means to collect such information provided that, in the case of personal data, the consent of the data subjects is obtained. For this reason, the data verification and consultation services of the data intermediation platform ("My exchanges between administrations") allow any Administration entity to consult or verify that data without the need to request the provision of the corresponding supporting documents, thus enabling compliance with the aforementioned article 28(2) and, consequently, the citizen's right recognised in the Law to be enforced.

The information associated with the exchanges between Administration entities that can be accessed from the Digital Citizen's Folder is of two types:

• Inter-Agency Queries: initiated from one Administration Agency to consult data and/or documents held by another Agency, i.e. queries between Public Administrations.
• Queries from My Digital Citizen's Folder: personal data queries initiated by the user from the Citizen's Folder itself on any of the topics listed above: education, training, citizenship, work, social affairs, etc.

The functionalities and the incorporation of more procedures and queries will be increased during the second half of 2023 and in 2024. Its roadmap can be consulted at the web address "Mi carpeta ciudadana - More Information".

For all these reasons, the Digital Citizens' Folder is an exercise in reinforcing the transparency of the Public Administrations in their administrative actions towards the data subjects, by allowing citizens to access not only their data, but also information on the exchange of their data between Administrations in the exercise of their functions.

Other materials published by the AEPD on Innovation and Technology for Public Administrations are:

• Guidelines to manage data breach risk in public sector bodies massive data communications [mar 2023]
• Technologies and Data Protection in Public Administrations [dec 2020]
• Approach to data spaces from GDPR perspective [may 2023]
• Guidelines for Implementation of the Eighth Additional Provision and Twelfth Final Provision of the LOPDGDD [feb 2020]