Questions/Answers

Meu INSS is a technological solution that provides digital social security services for the Brazilian population. Services that once required in-person displacement to one of the agencies, can now be requested from the internet. Due to the great number of users, the Institute had to deal with extremely long queues and croweded agencies, making the provision of those services very slow and susceptible to errors and frauds. Moreover, the number of employees is reducing substantially with the actual policy of state downsizing, so it will be even more necessary to increase virtual attendence. Some of the main services offered by the solution are: 1- retirement requests; 2- maternity leave salary; 3- pension payment monitoring; 4- retirement simulator (calculates if the person has the right to retire, how long will it take and how much the pension will be); among many others. The biggest challenge to overcome is organizational culture change from all the parties (Dataprev and INSS): At first, they were used to papers, stamps, time consuming processes and large bureaucracy that also weaken security issues. The main goals of this solution are: 1- Allow the population access to INSS services from internet in a safe way; 2- Simplify internal processes from the institute; 3- To give greater transparency to requirement and granting procedures, as well as the appeal; 4- Perform data crossovers between different databases.

The solution transformed the way citizens have access to offered services, reducing substantially the need of physical displacement towards the agencies that provide those services. One of the most important mechanism is the automatic benefit granting, which takes only a few seconds, with no need for human intervention. The profile of the public served by the initiative includes especially the elderly, injured people, pregnant women and low-income citizens. This public has a more vulnerable livelihood and usually encounters enourmous mobility difficuties with the precarious Brazilian transportation system.

1) 1.1: Reduces transportation costs, which allows significant savings for those in vulnerable situations and increases their visibility for public governance. 1.4: It brings people closer to welfare assistance, providing the same access conditions and convenience as urban people. 1.5: When people in precarious situations receive welfare benefits, they become less susceptible to external impacts in terms of public health, environmental disasters, etc. 8) 8.8: Allows the worker to track his history of financial transactions in a fund used in cases of unemployment or other emergencies. 10) 10.2: It allows people with no previous access to services (due to geographical, physical, economical or any other limitations) to have their rights recognized and granted. 14) 14.4: Provides benefit to fishermen, during fish breeding season, associated to a registry that checks for any irregularities, and reduces predatory and illegal fishing. 16) 16.6: It allows citizens to monitor the progress of service requests and gives the institution a transparent and effective image. 16.10: Facilitates, via mobile or desktop, access to information and welfare benefits. 17) 17.17: The initiative was possible because of the partnership between Dataprev + INSS + SDG. 17.18: It promotes social inclusion for people who live in remote regions in Brazil.

The initiative reduces physical service points, resulting in less consumption of water, energy and paper. It also reduces personnel expenses, increasing the efficiency of the state apparatus. Reduces citizens' costs to access care and social security services. The savings generated by the solution far outweighs its development and maintenance cost.

One of the biggest challenges that Brazil faces today concerns the magnitude of its dimensions: about 210 million people and more than 8 million squared kilometers of territory. In addition, the country has one of the highest rates regarding social inequality, with significant gaps between regions. Some regions use only paper to store data, while others work with digital documents in totality. There is a lack of standardization of data storage and processing, making it very difficult to track and update personal information. The solution allows every citizen to easely access their own data and also identify (and digitally correct) divergences. This contributes to the quality of the stored information in governmental databases. Morever, due to a greater transparency and proximity between users and the organization, the citizen can oversee and demand more improvements from the state.

The solution ensures that, regardless of the gender, everyone has equal access to public services, so that their rights are acknowlegded and guaranteed. It specially better, faster and more convenient service for the most vulnerable people in society. Particularly for pregnant women, this system provides a much more efficient application of the Law 8.213/1991, which states that every women should receive a maternity leave salary, regardless of her situation. Now the woman can automatically (instead of days or weeks) receive the benefit through the app, thus even reducing costs with transportation and saving time spent in queues or offices.

The public of this initiative is the poorest and most vulnerable population, living in precarious conditions and far from urban centers. Pregnant women, elderly or injured people, and even small-scale fishermen are also part of this group. As a result of the solution, there is a greater dissemination of social security and assistance services offered by the government. The citizen becomes aware, not only of available services, but also of their rights, having therefore more ease and transparency in requesting these rights. In some cases, due to geographical distance from urban centers and high prices of the transportation system, people simply give up requesting the benefit. Or, in other cases, they have to wait a few months, so that the cost of travelling is offset by going only once within a longer period. There are also people who simply do not know about their rights or even about the existence of these benefits. For all these cases, the solution improves, or totally solves, such obstacles.

Firstly, since the need to digitally transform social security services, a working group was set up to verify which services were most used and which could be totally or partially required in a digital way. Secondly, a development system project was created to build the application's backend and frontend, which made it possible for citizens to access these services remotely. Finally, the service was put into production on november 11th of 2016 and, thereafter, a new version is released every 6 months to meet new requirements and demands. Assessment of the system in made jointly by the Dataprev and the Institute (INSS). This joint venture considers criteria based in "User Experience" (UX Design) and “Interface Design” (UI Design), such as citizen surveys, focal group interviews and user review or comments. In addition, there is another evaluation method implemented by the Secretariat of Digital Government (SDG), which questions the citizen directly about their satisfaction towards the Meu INSS iniciative.

One of the major challenges faced was how to overcome the need to integrate current systems (many of them from legacy technologies) and adapt them so that they are best suited to provide Meu INSS services simply and securely. From this, Dataprev implemented a service layer specific to Meu INSS, able to translate the various technologies from the systems used by INSS, so that this data could be transmitted to citizens. We also created a layer of services that allowed Meu INSS to deliver official documents with guaranteed authenticity, regardless of the source or technology on which the information was generated.

This solution is innovative, because Digital Transformation in Brazil is still incipient and, prior to “Meu INSS”, the government did not have a robust product to showcase its potential to include different groups of people distant from technology in a process that is consolidating the path to digital revolution. Considering that Brazil is a country with an excess of bureaucracy, large geographical distances and often lacks transportation in regions far from urban centers, the challenge is to make public services available to anyone regardless of region. The solution provides digital documents that are accepted at other agencies without the need for a stamped paper, so citizens don’t have to commute to get a document.

It didn’t actually draw inspiration from any external initiative. Instead, a look inside the agency itself – which is present over more than a thousand places – showed that access to social security services were completly uneven aroud the country, distinctively among regions. The real inspiration was the variety of cultures, needs, life styles and levels of education that should comprise the process of Digital Transformation.

Yes. In the context of the Digital Transformation the Brazilian government is currently engaged, the “Meu INSS” project has influenced some other government initiatives. For example, the Department of Labour created their own digital portfolio that shows all the labor links of the employed population in Brazil. In addition, we mention the launch of the unique access portal GOV.BR, designed to join all of the Brazilian government’s portals and services in one access place. These are just a few of several initiatives that the Federal Government's Secretary of Digital Government of the Ministry of Economy (SGD/ME) is overviewing. It's official aim is “to define guidelines, standardize and coordinate projects for simplification of services and public policies, digital transformation of public services, governance and sharing of data and the use of digital channels”.

Despite the fact that this iniciative has been adapted to some other contexts, as described in the question above, this project has a great potential for transferability, not only in the context of many other public institutions in Brazil, but also in other countries. Under the South-South Cooperation project "Modernization of Social Security of Mozambique", Brazil's Social Security Institute (INSS) developed a partnership with Mozambique to improve the latter's administrative and operational capacities. Mozambique's delegation first came to Brazil in 2007,when the representatives met Dataprev and expressed interest for developing a project to digitalize Mozambican social security system. Since then, several exchanges of experiences were made and the project was signed in 2010, with the main objective of sharing Brazilian knowledge.

Dataprev is a public IT company that was procured by the National Institute for Social Security (INSS), through a preexisting contract to deliver IT services. The development of this project involved both INSS and Dataprev personnel working together for a couple of years, and the development teams included social security analysts and technicians, business analysts, IT managers, software architectures and engineers, among others. The whole development cost was about US$ 470,000.00 and its maintenance is about US$ 40,000.00 monthly.

Brazil is a country with a lot of bureaucracy in the public service, which consumes an excess of financial and human resources. Some of the costs involved are: paper, staff, building rental to store copies of citizen documentation, etc. Considering the capillarity of the agency, INSS has approximately 1500 service agencies throughout the country. Only the cost involved to maintain all this infrastructure already compensates the development and maintenance of this solution. Besides, in institutional terms, we have full suport and encouragement of the highest level of the governmental structure, the presidency, which established the digital transformation as national goal.

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1. The first evaluation happened in 2018 by Brazilian Government Accountability Office (TCU). The focus was to test the accessibility of the web version aligned with e-MAG (Brazilian accessibility model based on W3C - World Wide Web Consortium). 2. Using the method of focus groups interview, INSS was able to collect information straight from the users. With these feedbacks it was possible to improve the product so the user experience would become more friendly.

1. The indicator recommended by e-MAG is at least 95%. This is the level of adherence that a web solution needs to meet in order to be considered accessible to someone with physical limitation. The tool used is called ASES available on: http://asesweb.governoeletronico.gov.br/ases/. 2. INSS invited two mobile user groups: one group being active workers and another retirees. A moderator briefly presented the product and asked the users to test certain features. The moderator then gathered user's impressions, difficulties and vocabulary suitability. This feedback brought substantial qualitative results to improve the user experience (UX) of the app.

1. Through ASES, it was found that the solution's adherence to the accessability level was between 75% and 83%. Since it was the first application developed by Dataprev and INSS for direct use by the Brazilian citizen some accessibility requirements were not observed at the time. Due to this result, a project focused on accessibility was created based on User Experience Design (UX) and User Interface Design (UI), resulting in product refactoring to meet the minimum accessibility requirements proposed by e-MAG. 2. As consequence it was possible to review words/terms, service names and even navigability. These inputs were used to improve accessibility and usability of the product during development.

The statements declared by Meu INSS solution are used as input for many public administration entities to provide benefits for the population. Public administration in Brazil can use data derived from benefit granting for studies related to public policies. The Brazilian government has a Digital Governance Strategy which “aims to make public policies more efficient and economical through the use of technologies”. To meet this demand, the Secretariat of Digital Government (SGD) provides logistical, administrative, political, human resources, as well as mediate negotiations between other entities of the public administration.

Since the core business of social security has happend for decades, the designing stage started with executives of the National Institute for Social Services (INSS) and development teams of Dataprev listening to the needs stated by the users of services offered by the INSS. Likewise, workers who dealt directly with the public had a important role in mapping the daily basis activities. Design Thinking and User Experience (UX) techniques were used in the process. The main government stakeholders envolved in this initiative were INSS, SDG (Secretariat of Digital Government) and Dataprev (Public IT Company). This engagement was reinforced by a Federal government project entitled “Tranformação Digital” (Digital Transformation), which gave a priority role to social security issues, which cover a major part of the population and uses large amounts of data to enable automatic benefit concession. Design, development, implemention and evaluation happened in cycles in a waterfall fashion: in short periods of time, a specific feature was developed, released to users and then evaluated by the population (the final users), agency executives and government accountability offices. Thus all stages are connected and envolves the stakeholders mentioned above in a continuous improvement process.

Until 2016, most of the products developed by Dataprev were for INSS users. With the launch of My INSS, the company started delivering services directly to the citizen. The main lessons learned involved: - Necessity of knowing and mapping the new personas clients of Meu INSS (Brazilian citizens that seek INSS services who belong to different age groups, have distinct economic situation and interests); - Structuring a company to support citizens directly and no longer INSS users; - Defining an architecture and infrastructure that will keep up with product growth in a sustainable way, since it was not possible to precisely define the initial volume of accesses because the target audience involved the entire economically active Brazilian population. To continuously improve Dataprev has invested in: - UX writing workshops to adapt the application to a natural language for the citizen (eliminating technical terms from INSS users); - Design thinking workshops to improve product layout and user experience; - Training the support team at Playstore and Applestore;