Among the certainly most successful applications that finally manage to improve dialogue and collaboration between citizens and Public Administration (and vice versa), there is certainly theIO App. Presented for the first time in April 2020, we immediately talked about it, explaining what IO is and how it works. This is an application designed and developed for mobile devices: however, there is no version accessible from a web browser, much less a desktop client.
Utilities and advantages of the IO App
The main advantage resulting from the installation and use of the IO App is that it allows you to receive communications directly from the Public Administrations. There is no risk of forget a payment because the application intelligently reverses the flow of information. Instead of the taxpayer being the one to remember one expiration, is the app that remembers the bills to be paid and the institution that requested payment. The reception of push notifications on the smartphone, it allows the user to promptly check the alerts received and evaluate the regularization of the indicated matches.
The IO App contains the tools to manage communications and payments: touching Payments at the bottom you can pay a notice, including those possibly received in paper format (and not digitally via the app). However, nothing prevents you from using the payment methods you prefer, for example by referring to the reference banking institution. Even in these cases, the IO App draws on the platform’s databases payPA and confirms payments already made, regardless of the channel chosen by the user.
Access to the IO App is possible after registration and access with SPID or CIE: both systems, in fact, allow you to certify theuser identity which performs the authentication.
Goodbye to frequent login with SPID or CIE
One of the most frequent complaints made by users of the IO App was that the application often “forgot” that the authentication. If for those who used the CIE i.e. the Electronic Identity Card with smartphones equipped with an NFC chip, the new login procedure was actually rather quick, for those who instead use a SPID digital identity the procedure was certainly more tedious. Especially given the IO App’s habit of requesting it at every turn.
With the latest version of the IO App, released at the end of January 2024, the session duration it was postponed for a year. This means that unless you specifically request the logout from the application interface, it will welcome the user – on his personal device – without requiring access with SPID or CIE. Even if it were forced closing the applicationthe next time the App IO is started it will show the screen by default Messages.
Obviously, to open the application you are still required to enter the unlock code that you use to access your phone, face recognition or fingerprint recognition (biometric protection). For greater security, IO sends a notification via email to inform the user about each access, clearly reporting the date, time and IP address of the client used for login.
Log out of the Web when necessary
The only operation that IO allows you to request from the Web is logging out of the application. If you are no longer able to find your phone (for example if you lost it…), you can access the IO App page from a web browser and then log in with SPID or CIE.
From here, clicking on Exit IO, you can request to stop the active session on any mobile device. Instead, with the box Block access to IOyou can forcibly stop using your digital identity if you suspect it has been compromised.
As you can see, having selected the button Continue with quick access during login, the duration of the session shown in the box Session validity is exactly equal to one year.
Conclusions
In conclusion, the IO app – available for Android and iOS terminals – has reached an excellent level of maturity. As the numbers on its use confirm, both by users and public bodies.
The use of the State application is expected to grow further because between June and September 2024 it will begin to offer access to a wide range of certificates e personal documentsas part of the IT Wallet program, which in turn anticipates the European Digital Identity Wallet.
The IO App, among other things, already allows you to sign documents issued by the Public Administration using the Signature with IO system, which is in turn integrated into the application.