DIGITAL TRANSFORMATION: A CHALLENGE FOR PUBLIC ADMINISTRATIONS ACROSS EUROPE

The digital transformation of public administrations is one of the major challenges of this decade. Through the Digital Decade initiative, the European Union aims to ensure that anyone can access public services from any European country, securely and without complications. But what does this actually involve?

• Digitising administrative procedures, so that processes that currently require paperwork can be completed online.
• Creating a universal digital identity, enabling citizens to identify themselves across any European public service.
• Ensuring interoperability, so that technological infrastructures work together seamlessly across the continent, removing barriers between countries.
• In other words, the goal is to build a public administration that is more efficient, secure, transparent, and citizen-centred.

WHAT IS GOVTECH AND WHY IS IT REVOLUTIONISING PUBLIC ADMINISTRATION?

In this context, the GovTech approach has become a key driver of public innovation. The term comes from the combination of government and technology, but it goes far beyond simply using digital tools. GovTech is about rethinking how administrative processes work in order to make them more agile, transparent, and focused on citizens’ real needs.

This approach promotes collaboration between governments, startups, and technology companies to create scalable solutions tailored to real-life challenges. Key technologies include artificial intelligence (AI), intelligent automation, and sectoral data spaces, which allow secure information sharing between institutions.

With this spirit, the European project GovTech4All was launched in 2023, funded by the Digital Europe Programme. Its goal is to accelerate the digital transformation of the public sector through innovative pilot projects that strengthen the GovTech ecosystem across Europe.

BILBAO: THE EPICENTRE OF GOVTECH INNOVATION

The first phase of the project, which ran from July 2023 to June 2025, concluded with the GovTech4All European Consortium Summit 2025, held in Bilbao. This event brought together institutional and technological representatives from across Europe to share progress and define the future roadmap.

In addition to hosting the summit, LANTIK played a key role in the project as coordinator of its three initial pilots. It also led one of them, focused on secure cross-border data exchange using post-quantum technologies, a critical challenge for ensuring European cooperation.

This work has laid the foundations for the new phase, GovTech4All 2.0, which will run until 2027 and include eight new pilots. LANTIK is participating in two of them, covering technologies to automate document management processes and generate “rules as code” centred on citizens. In both cases, LANTIK contributes its Security Framework for post-quantum encryption, developed during the project’s first cycle.

SECURE CROSS-BORDER DATA EXCHANGE

Imagine being able to complete any administrative procedure online anywhere in Europe, without worrying about the security of your data. That was the challenge addressed by this GovTech4All pilot, coordinated by LANTIK together with public bodies from France (DINUM) and Greece (GRNET). The objective? To enable individuals and companies to manage documents and requests across the European Union with full confidence, knowing their personal information is protected.

To achieve this, cutting-edge technologies such as post-quantum cryptography and homomorphic encryption were used; technologies that keep data secure even while it is being processed, anticipating future threats posed by quantum computers. In addition, the project relied on open and interoperable solutions, based on European and open-source standards, ensuring that systems from different countries can “speak the same digital language” and easily share components.

All of this is supported by LANTIK’s Security Framework: a flexible and scalable set of libraries that ensures information remains under public control and protected against any threat. This approach lays the groundwork for a more secure, connected, and people-centred European digital administration.

ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE FOR AUTOMATED DOCUMENT MANAGEMENT

One of the major challenges faced by public administrations is document management. Many tasks are still carried out manually, leading to delays and errors. To address this, one of the new GovTech4All 2.0 pilots focuses on artificial intelligence, optical character recognition (OCR), optical mark recognition (OMR), and multimodal models that combine text and image processing.

This makes it possible to automatically extract and classify information from both paper and digital documents. The system learns and improves with user input, adapting to new formats and reducing errors. The entire process complies with the highest standards of security and privacy, thanks to LANTIK’s Security Framework, which protects data even against future technological threats. The solution is also based on open-source standards, making it easier for other administrations to adopt and further develop it.

“RULES AS CODE” CENTRED ON CITIZENS

Have you ever tried to read a law? If you have, you’ll know that legal texts are often written in complex, inaccessible language. This makes it difficult for citizens to understand them and for digital systems to process them automatically, leading to inefficiencies, errors, and a lack of transparency.

Another new GovTech4All 2.0 pilot focuses on digitising regulations using the “Rules as Code” (RaC) approach. What does that mean? Writing laws and public policies in digital formats that can be interpreted by both people and computers.

The pilot will develop an open, modular platform to digitise legislation, create virtual assistants that help people understand and apply the law, and simulate the real-time impact of regulatory changes. Artificial intelligence and natural language processing technologies will be used to analyse and codify legislation, always under strict ethical and security criteria, supported by LANTIK’s Security Framework.

A FUTURE-ORIENTED SECURITY FRAMEWORK

LANTIK’s Security Framework, developed using open-source libraries, integrates post-quantum and homomorphic encryption technologies. It offers a modular architecture that allows public administrations to implement complex cryptographic operations in a simple and efficient way.

This solution not only guarantees security and privacy in cross-border information exchange but also strengthens interoperability and resilience in digital services. It is aligned with Biscay’s quantum roadmap, the BIQAIN strategy, positioning the territory as a European benchmark in quantum innovation applied to the public sector and creating a strong talent-attraction hub in this field.

With this commitment, LANTIK reinforces its focus on:

• Technological sovereignty, reducing dependence on external solutions.
• Generating and attracting specialised talent in emerging technologies.
• Public–private collaboration to build a safer, more efficient, and citizen-centred administration.
• Security as a core principle for all information exchange, protecting data against both current and future (quantum) computing threats.