1. Fabio Grandi, Maria Rita Scalas,
Management of the Citizen's Digital Identity and Access to Multi-version Norm Texts on the Semantic Web
Fabio Grandi, Maria Rita Scalas,
University of Bologna, Italy Federica Mandreoli, Paolo Tiberio, University of Modena e Reggio Emilia, Italy

2. The Semantic Web
"The Semantic Web is an extension of the current web in which information is given well-defined meaning, better enabling computers and people to work in cooperation." -- T. Berners-Lee, J. Hendler, O. Lassila, Scientific American, May 2001

3. E-Government and Digital Identity
E-Government uses improved Internet-based technology to make it easy for citizens to interact with Public Administration services.
The “digital identity” of citizens is the collection of information concerning them stored in PA information systems and available online

4. Access to Norm Texts
Large collections of norm texts are becoming available online (e.g. in “official” XML repositories)
Access to norm texts provided by PA websites is a useful service for E-Gov (e.g. to improve citizens’ knowledge and involvement)

5. The Research Aim
To improve the citizens’ access to norm texts via personalization of the service
Personalization is based on the diverse applicability of norm portions to different citizens or citizen classes
Personalization relies on D-Id and is implemented via Sem-Web techniques

6. An example of personalization
This is a sample Law
Art. 1 – provisions for former conscripts
…here is the text of Art. 1…
Art. 2 – provisions for future mothers
…here is the text of Art. 2…
Art. 3 – provisions for truck drivers
…here is the text of Art. 3…

7. If the citizen is a man… This is a sample Law
Art. 1 – provisions for former conscripts
…here is the text of Art. 1…
Art. 2 – provisions for future mothers
…here is the text of Art. 2…
Art. 3 – provisions for truck drivers
…here is the text of Art. 3…

8. If the citizen is a woman…
This is a sample Law
Art. 1 – provisions for former conscripts
…here is the text of Art. 1…
Art. 2 – provisions for future mothers
…here is the text of Art. 2…
Art. 3 – provisions for truck drivers
…here is the text of Art. 3…

9. The Route to Implementation
Definition of a Civic Ontology to provide a common reference for automatic classification of citizens
Semantic Markup of Norm Documents to insert annotations concerning applicability wrt the ontology classes
Implementation of Web Services for identification and personalized access

10. The Civic Ontology
Is a legal ontology describing citizens considered as passive subjects of norms
The classification is based on definitions introduced by norms (founding acts) stating limitations in their applicability
The class definitions need “official validation” by human experts (for liability reasons)

11. An Example of Civic Ontology
Founding acts: norms ruling the status of citizens according to their work position

12. An Ontology Update
A new founding act introduces special provisions for citizens retired since 2000: a new subclass C8 is then defined

13. Implementation of the Ontology
Two sample Civic Ontologies are being implemented using the OWL language (W3C standard)
A graphic editor is being used for development (Protégé OWL Plugin 1.1)
Norms involving the Italian university system and the regional public kindergarten system have been chosen as reference norm corpora

14. Semantic Annotation of Norms
The research group previously developed a data model and system architecture for the management of multiversion norm texts in XML format (WIDM03, D&KE forthcoming)
Temporal dimensions were used for versioning
Reference to ontology classes is included in the norm document markup as a new versioning dimension representing applicability to citizen classes

15. The Markup of a Sample Law
<article num=“1”>
<applies to=“class:former_conscripts”>
<heading> Art. 1 – provisions for former conscripts </heading>
…here is the text of Art. 1…
</applies>
</article>
<article num=“2”>
<applies to=“class:future_mothers”>
<heading> Art. 2 – provisions for future mothers </heading>
…here is the text of Art. 2…
<applies to=“class:truck_drivers”>
<heading> Art. 3 – provisions for truck drivers </heading>
…here is the text of Art. 3…

16. Implementation of Norm Repositories
Extensions of temporal data models (based on XML-Schema, DTDs) have been developed to include the new versioning dimension (applicability)
A prototype repository is being implemented on top of Oracle DBMS
Query facilities for personalized access to norms are being developed

17. Implementation of Web Services (Future Work)
The 2nd phase of the project requires the definition and implementation of specific Web Services:
Identification services
Citizen classification service
Personalized access service
Standard formalisms based on XML/SOAP will be used (e.g. WSDL, DAML-S, BPEL4WS)

18. Identification Services
Are needed to reconstruct the digital identity of a citizen connected to the system
Must act by querying PA information systems to collect pieces of information concerning the citizen (trustworthy logged-on, e.g. by means of E-Authentication methods)
Their specification must be semi-automated (a new identification service is needed every time the civic ontology is updated, in order to decide membership of citizens to new classes)

19. Classification Service
Is needed to classify the citizen wrt the civic ontology (e.g. finding the most specific membership class)
A DL-reasoner (e.g. Racer) must solve an ontology-entailment task between the citizen’s digital identity and the ontology class definitions

20. Personalized Access Service
Is needed to encapsulate the query facilities of the XML norm repository and to support the user interaction
Must invoke in a transparent way the identification and classification services

21. Conclusions (1)
The two-year research project is so far in the middle of the first year
Part of the research work builds upon previous results (XML multiversion data model and prototype management system)
Brand new work involves the Civic Ontology specification and construction
The Ontology and the Norm Repository are the expected deliverables at the end of 2004

22. Conclusions (2)
The second year activity (2005) will be focused on specification and implementation of Web Services
Experimental evaluation and final assessment of prototypes will complete the project
The expected bottleneck is represented by the upgrade of PA information systems which must supply remote query facilities for building digital identities