Interior ministry names four digital-service opening cases as best practices

The interior ministry said Thursday it selected four cases of public-private collaboration on digital-service opening as best practices, and will present awards for them at a sharing event in Seoul on Friday.

The winners are the Korea Transportation Safety Authority and Kakao Mobility for a vehicle inspection reservation service, the Korea Youth Activity Promotion Agency for its youth volunteer application and lookup service, and KB Kookmin Bank for the KB Star Banking national wallet service.

The selections followed three rounds of review — a document screening, a public vote on the government's Communication 24 platform from Oct. 1 to Oct. 7, and an expert panel, the ministry said.

Digital-service opening is the policy of dismantling the barriers between the private and public sectors so that people can use government services inside the apps and websites they already open, such as booking KTX or SRT trains through Naver Map or reserving a slot at the National Institute of Ecology in a Kookmin Bank app. The ministry is running Friday's event, set for 2 p.m. at Voco Seoul Gangnam, together with the National Information Society Agency.

After the awards, the ministry will hold an interim review of this year's support program for developing APIs that open public services to private platforms. Officials will go over each project's progress and development schedule, discuss obstacles, and look for ways to widen cooperation between the two sectors.

"Digital-service opening is an important policy that lets the public and private sectors work together so that people can use public services more conveniently wherever they want," said Hwang Kyu-chul, who heads the ministry's artificial intelligence government office. "Based on the best practices and feedback from the field at this sharing event and the interim review, we will continue to expand digital services that people can feel."