New Technical Project "Safe Registration Office" Implemented in Austria
The reporting procedure will now be automated through the project “Safe Registration Office” in Austria. This is to prevent crime, the Interior Ministry said. In addition, the "Safe Registration Office" should in future also offer a possibility for a simplified report to the local police station.
The Austrian Interior Ministry Implemented the "Safe Registration" Project to Prevent Crime for the Citizens. / Picture: © BMI Bundesministerium für Inneres / Karl Schober
The Ministry of the Interior has created an Austria-wide registration office solution together with Comm-Unity, an Austrian IT company specializing in e-government solutions. The local registration register combines registration, personal, and election data and expands the central registration register with additional procedures that are required in the registration offices daily. Due to the implemented functions, the local population register also supports cities and municipalities in conducting elections. This application is primarily used to manage local personal and registration data in the best possible way.
As part of the "Safe Registration Office" project, the registration procedure is to be automated throughout Austria. The project was started at the beginning of 2020, and implementation and Austria-wide strategic control took place in the autumn of 2022. Using document readers when verifying identity documents, the employees in the registration service centers now receive technical support and the data is automatically transferred to the central register of persons, the local register of persons, and other local applications.
Many criminal acts, such as obtaining work permits, social benefit fraud, and receiving unemployment benefits and social benefits are based on an entry in the central register. Due to the automated data validation, a decrease in criminal acts using a registration form can be expected and thus fraudulent acts can be prevented. In addition, the safe registration office should also offer a possibility for a simplified report to the local police station. In suspicious cases, a report can be made online, which enables the police to process it more quickly and easily.
In 2020, Austrian authorities sent 40 million inquiries and business partners 3.7 million inquiries to the central population register. The Central Register of Residents is an important source of information for authorities and businesses. The first contact foreigners have with Austrian authorities is usually at a registration service point. "The further development of the central register is on the one hand a work simplification for the thousands of municipal employees in Austria, but also an important step towards the prevention of criminal acts," says Interior Minister Gerhard Karner.