The interministerial digital department (DINUM) has published a guide of recommendations and best practices for sharing data via API within the administration. This report is established with the network of ministerial administrators of data, algorithms and source codes.
This follows the publication, in September 2021, of an interministerial data administration framework. This new document “extends” it, this time by insisting specifically on the circulation of data by API. Its purpose is to support and structure the development of APIs by administrations.
Because the DINUM warns of a lack: “Despite the buoyant context and the increase in the number of APIs available, the development of data sharing between administrations still encounters obstacles in the field”, indicates the service in a press release.
Online, of the 200 most important digital procedures of the State, “76 still require the user to make a moderate or even significant effort to enter data already known to the administration”, notes DINUM.
After the 3DS law and the start of ministerial data strategies
According to DINUM, it would thus be necessary to “improve the ability to provide re-users with data that meets their business uses, the quality of the data transmitted and the quality of service offered”.
In the middle of the summer, the DINUM returned to the development of data sharing via API in a “favorable legal framework”, it mentions, in particular with the 3DS law of 2022. This law relating to the differentiation, the decentralization, deconcentration and territorial simplification reinforces the competences of local authorities in various fields. It focuses in particular on the sharing of data between administrations and externally.
The law enshrines the principle of non-redundancy of information requested from users. According to DINUM, this principle is also called “Tell us once”. It consists of “no longer asking the user for supporting documents for information that another administration already holds, or has even produced, by sharing it through computer interfaces, the APIs”. It has already made it possible to “avoid a million companies from transmitting 25 million supporting documents”.
Over the past year, each ministry has also had to define its data strategy. Ministerial roadmaps were unveiled by the Ministry of Transformation and Public Service in September 2021.
What does DINUM insist on?
DINUM identifies six major issues around data, which are discoverability, access to data, data exploitation, quality of service, data curation and finally the economic model.
The document begins by specifying how APIs are referenced. He explains that each API exposed corresponds to a “functional documentation” which presents the semantics and the quality of the data. Among other things, a “technical documentation” to know the methods of data recovery, as well as the general conditions of use.
For access to data, DINUM recalls that APIs can rely on an “end-user authentication mechanism” which ensures rights management within the platform that provides them. In addition, this concerns FranceConnect, AgentConnect and EduConnect for natural persons, and ProConnect for legal persons.
On the other hand, if the right of access is not pre-established, then the request process is done “in the simplest way possible for the re-user”. A response must be sent to him “within a recommended period of 15 calendar days”, recommends the management, which recalls that the maximum legal period is 30 days to respond to a request.
In the part of the report devoted to the exploitation of data, the DINUM further explains that the principle of architecture and encoding “the most known and practiced” is the REST Json standard for synchronous APIs, and the AsyncAPI principle for asynchronous APIs. DINUM also recommends opting for a “contract first” approach, and not a “code first” approach to developing new interfaces. This allows, according to the management, to “stabilize them and to make several teams work in parallel within the same architecture”.