Teleadministration is based on the concept that documents in electronic format have legal value. Administrative informatics is not new, but for many years it was merely information technology applied to legal documents; that is, the reproduction of paper-based legal documents into electronic file systems. Instead, teleadministration turns this approach into its head. It is based on research conducted in 1978, the year when, at a conference promoted by the Court of Cassation, Giovanni Duni launched the then-futuristic idea that an electronic document could have legal value.1. Duni, G., L'utilizzabilità delle tecniche elettroniche nell'emanazione degli atti e nei procedimenti amministrativi. Spunto per una teoria dell'atto amministrativo emanato nella forma elettronica, in "Rivista amm. della Repubblica italiana", 1978, pag.407 ss. 1978 was also the year in which the first research on digital signatures (RSA)2. Rivest, Shamir e Adleman, A method for obtaining digital signature and public key cryptosystems, in Communications of the ACM, vol. 21, febbraio 1978, 120-126. This research referred to the asymmetric encryption technology (Diffie and Hellman, New directions in Cryptography, in IEEE Transactions on Information Theory, November 1976, 644 ss. Diffie and Hellman's research was disseminated in Italy by Gardner, "Un nuovo tipo di cifrario che richiederebbe milioni di anni per essere decifrato", in Le Scienze, December 1977, 126 ss.), who added the regulation for issuing the keys and the public certification process associated to them. was published in the United States, yet it would take more than twenty-five years for jurists and mathematicians to start working together.3. The first application of the research by Rivest, Shamir and Adleman was the 1995 Utah Code, § from 46-3-101 to 46-3-504 (Enacted by l. 1995, ch. 61). The Utah code was analysed in the brilliant dissertation written by Francesca Flora, Evoluzione della informatica nel sistema di governo degli Stati Uniti d'America (Cagliari, dept. Of Political Science, November 1996). For application at the federal level one had to wait until 1998: US Senate, S. 1594, Digital Signature and Electronic Authentication Law (SEAL) of 1998. — US House of Representatives, H.R. 3472, Digital Signature and Electronic Authentication Law (SEAL) of 1998.
For many years, and even before 1978, IT helped public administration but kept a "safe distance", assuming that the 'sacred nature' of the law demanded the use of pen and paper. Information technology merely managed and filed copies of legal documents: it was known as "parallel IT",4. Duni, G., Amministrazione digitale, Voce della Enciclopedia del diritto, Annali, I, Milano 2007, p. 13-49. since it was an accessory to the activity with formal value, the one based on pen and paper.
Thus, the logical, legal and material premise of teleadministration is the conferment of legal value to IT documents.
Origins and terminology In Italy, the linguistic expression5. Teleamministrazione, Lessico del XXI secolo, Treccani teleamministrazione was first used in 1991 at the Roman 'La Sapienza' university, during a conference organised by the Court of Cassation,6. Duni, G., Il progetto nazionale di teleamministrazione pubblica, in "L'informatica giuridica e il Ced della Corte di Cassazione", proceedings of the conference held at the Univ. of Rome "La Sapienza", 27-29 Nov. 1991, Milan 1992, p. 87 ss. in which it was said that: "the new system of administrative information technology is called "teleadministration" because all the work of the Public Administration will be carried out through devices, that could also be computers, linked to the central server through a network." Teleadministration was indeed considered a type of teleworking.7. Applicazioni della multimedialità nella P.A.: teleamministrazione e telelavoro", in Funzione Pubblica, special issue "I convegni di FORUM P.A. '96", volume I, p. 105.
With teleadministration, administrative procedures become electronic administrative procedures and, more specifically, those that are initiated by a party realize the electronic one stop shop.
Fundamentals In the decades from 1970 to 1990, the Court of Cassation was at the core of research on the relationship between IT and law, organising international conferences every five years on the topic. The 1993 international conference featured the fundamentals of teleadministration, providing the details of the administrative systems behind the one stop shop concept:8. Duni, G., presentation at the 5th International Congress at the Court of Cassation on "IT and Legal Activity" Rome, 3–7 May 1993, I.P.Z.S. - Libreria dello Stato, 1994, II, p. 381 ss.
A citizen presents a claim to one administration, which then manages the entire procedure. A single "administrative file" is created, no matter how many different administrations may be involved. For both internal and external stages in an administrative procedure, a "warning signal" is sent telematically to the relevant office where the next stage is due, the employee in that office then becomes responsible for that phase of the procedure. Any information concerning records already held by public administration is accessed telematically, without involving the citizen. The (electronic) signature identifies the identity of the operator through sophisticated techniques. The original of an administrative act is electronic and is therefore always available telematically to any administration that may need it. The presence of an increasing amount of on-line data will necessitate greater use of automatic data processing in decision-making. Saving data on multiple memory locations will guarantee the safekeeping of the acts. Statistical data will be available in real time and under multiple profiles, with great benefits for top level decision-making. Private citizens can obtain paper copies of the electronic acts.
The 5th fundamental mentions electronic rather than digital signatures. This is because, in the jurists' domain, digital signatures were not yet known. The generic reference to the electronic signature is however valid, and its general nature is actually suitable for the rules contained six years later in the Directive 1999/93/EC. The Directive refers in particular to all procedures initiated by private citizens, but the system remains valid for all procedures initiated by the administration offices as well.
Acknowledgement of the principles in current law The legally accepted form of acts and documents evolved according to the following stages: Acts only exist in paper form Acts in electronic format are a possible option Electronic format is compulsory, safe for a few exceptions In Italy, Phase 2 was launched by Art 15, para, 2, Law N. 59 of 15 March 1997, (the so-called 'Bassanini 1' law: it established the legal value of electronic documents, while regulations would establish the authentication criteria). The EC intervened later with its Directive 1999/93/EC of the European Parliament and the Council of 13 December 1999 (Transposed by Law Decree N.10 of 23 January 2002), which imposes an obligation on Member States to give legal value to documents with digital signatures (not directly named as such, but all their features are described in the directive). It also establishes that electronic documents should not be rejected a priori, hence opening to a range of different solutions to establish the authorship of a document (the so-called 'weak signatures').
The 1993 Directive was revoked and absorbed (for reasons of legal certainty and clarity) by Regulation 910/2014 of the European Parliament and Council of 23 July 2014 (also known as eIDAS regulation) in the OJEU 28 August 2014, which did not renege on the principle of also accepting the so-called 'weak signatures'. In Italy, The move to Phase 3 was established by Art.40 of Legislative sl. Decree N.82 of 7 March 2007, Code of Digital Administration (CAD), entitled "Creation of electronic documents", which states: "Public Administrations make the original copy of their documents with electronic means, according to the provisions of the present Code and the technical specifications of Article 71". Exceptions are extremely rare: Comma 3 states: by means of appropriate regulations...., proposed by the delegated Ministers for Public Functions, Innovation and Technology and the Minister for Cultural Heritage and Activities, the categories of administrative documents that can be created on paper in original are identified, having regard to the special historical and archive value they will have by nature" (think, for example, of the resignation of a President of the Republic).
National administrations are ignoring this provision, and today it is only private companies that are no longer allowed paper-based communication with public administrations (Art. N. 5 bis of the CAD and D.P.C.M. 22 July 2011); compulsory electronic invoicing was added on 31 March 2015 by Law N. 44 of 24 December 2007, Art. N. 1, para 209-214 implemented by Ministerial Decree N.55 of 3 April 2013, further clarified by Ministerial circular N.1 of 9 March 2015. The modernisation of procedures was also touched by Presidential Decree N. 447 of 20 October 1998 (creation of the One Stop Shop, but only for production activities, and paper based), while interest for a telematic procedure only began with Legislative Decree N. 82 of 7 March 2005, CAD, which is not as relevant in its first version but was later modified by several interventions, particularly Legislative Decree N. 335 of 10 December 2013.
European sources are also essential. The EC, and later the European Union, have undertaken a wide range of actions on e-government: one of the most important was the launch of the IDABC programme (and financing) for Interoperable Delivery of European eGovernment Services to public Administrations, Business and Citizens, via Decision 2004/387/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 21 April 2004. However, the ultimate acknowledgement of the principles of teleadministration, with the telematic One Stop Shop, is contained in the Directive 2006/123/EC of the European Parliament and Council of 12 December 2006, on the Internal market for services, which provides for Member States to set up an electronic One Stop Shop in the wide field of administrative procedures.
'Star' procedure Once paper based documents are abandoned, the real-time flow of documents greatly improves time management and responsibility of the single offices/ operators, while direct online access improves transparency. Teleadministration promotes maximum usage of the "star procedure", known and researched in Germany as "Sternverfahren". This procedure, an alternative to the sequential procedure, which has by nature longer head times, in the paper-based world would require making several copies of the administrative file (which can be extremely voluminous) for each office and each administration that needs to express an opinion or issue an authorisation. With the One Stop Shop, the administration initiating the process is charged with this task. Electronic files clearly provide evident benefits for these procedures, since all involved administrations can directly and simultaneously access the file, view the part they need to evaluate and add their opinion or authorisation directly, using a star-shaped scheme.
Assessing actual acceptance in current law and real life As a scientific proposition, teleadministration sketched the system of telematic administrative procedures well ahead of the law, and particularly the electronic One Stop Shop concept. Both concepts are based on the dematerialisation of documents and on telematic administrative work.