# Interconnected Government Services: An Approach toward Smart Government
## 3 The Methodology  
Establishing a more intelligent public administration requires defining a new model and appropriate procedures for IGS. Its implementation requires interoperability between different and independent information systems, protecting users' privacy and data integrity in all of the existing databases [35]. We propose a solution that separates the data processing from the data storage and enables an application to communicate with a single instance, despite multiple database nodes acting over the data. Our goal is to obtain data from various databases without investing in new expensive systems for data storage (databases remain in their current locations, entirely functional and self-sustaining) or taking the time for data preparation. Thus, the proposed model introduces a layer of integration that ensures data collection from existing software platforms (operative systems, application servers, and databases) and the execution of a particular instance (a service function, e.g., child benefits). The system will determine which databases store the requested data if an application requests access to a single instance at this layer. In this way, we enable the actual processing of data to be distributed to multiple database nodes. The most important problem is maintaining the end-users privacy and the integrity and mutual collaboration of different databases. The information about the technical properties of the data format needs to be more relevant in this case. Different data types are published in a single format using the wrapper-mediator methodology [35], which has proven to be very effective at solving such problems. Figure 1 gives the basic structure of this model, which separates responsibilities into two conceptual components, the mediators and wrappers (described in the text below). This model implies that we divide the service request into several sub-requests executed in parallel over the bases, reducing the total processing time. The role of the query mediator (QM) is to handle users' requests and provide unified data access while every data resource connects to its wrapper [35]. The QM is a software engine that transforms user queries into subqueries, performing queries on data from different sources. Translating the query into queries against local schemas is called query mediation. It involves two steps: query planning (transforming the given query into subqueries) and query execution (sending queries and collecting results). The wrapper is a resource adapter that interacts with particular databases to prepare data in a format suitable for the integration mediator (IM). In that way, we achieve abstraction and hide heterogeneity. Original data are not moved from their location but only viewed and adapted to the required format before transfer to IM. Since there is no need for copying data, it positively impacts data privacy. Hence, instead of users collecting the documents from numerous authorities, this model passes just the necessary data to the IM, under a user code number (UCN), without identity [36]. So, information about the individual to whom the data belongs is neither transmitted nor stored. In the proposed model, the end-user creates a software entity that needs to grant it a service function (e.g., child benefits, disability pensions, financial assistance, and social assistance) based on information from separate sources (i.e., databases).