The Uniform Standards for Single Information Audit, known in Dutch as the Eenduidige Normatiek Single Information Audit, or ENSIA, originated from a joint initiative of the Ministries of the Interior and Kingdom Relations, Infrastructure and the Environment, Social Affairs and Employment, and the Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG). The objective of ENSIA is to establish the most effective and efficient accountability framework for information security, grounded in the Baseline Information Security for Government (BIO).
Implementation of ENSIA
ENSIA was introduced on 1 July 2017, and 7 information systems now use ENSIA for their accountability systems:
- Basic Registration of Persons (BRP) (Dutch)
- Passport Implementation Regulation (PUN)
- Digital personal identification (DigiD)
- Basic Registration of Addresses and Buildings (BAG) (Dutch)
- Basic Registration of Large-scale Topography (BGT) (Dutch)
- Basic Registration of Subsurface (BRO) (Dutch)
- Structure of the Work and Income Implementation Organisation (Suwinet)
The ENSIA system was evaluated in 2020. Following this evaluation, the Ministry of the Interior and Kingdom Relations conducted a quick scan to determine how accountability could be organised more efficiently and effectively. The implementation of the findings is still in progress.
Principle ENSIA Accountability Process
The starting point for the ENSIA accountability system is the process of horizontal accountability. In this process, the management of a government organisation is responsible for information security to the elected representatives in the (municipal) council. This is known as horizontal supervision. Horizontal accountability forms the foundation for the vertical accountability process towards the (central) supervisors of the aforementioned information systems. When rendering account, the principle of Single Information Single Audit applies: in essence, the information used for horizontal accountability is also utilised for vertical accountability.
In 2019, ENSIA is being further developed to prepare the accountability system for implementation of the Governmental Information security Baseline (BIO), which will replace the BIG.
More information
You can find more information (in Dutch) about ENSIA on ENSIA | VNG.
