E-Government standards

Jointly developed standards serve as a basis for the work of different regional authorities and are applied consistently across them. In recent years, representatives from the federal government, provinces, municipalities and local communities have worked together to create a modern and efficient e-government ecosystem.

At its heart are organisational, legal and technical standards and best practices which are developed jointly and form the foundation on which generic basic services and specific e-government solutions are built.

Standardisation supports rapid, efficient and sustainable digitalisation of the administrative agencies for the purposes of e-government.

E-Government Standards Big Picture - Portale

E-Government Standards Big Picture - Lösungen

E-Government Standards: Big Picture - Standards

E-Government Standards Big Picture - BLSG

Quelle: E-Government-Standards: Big Picture

Meaning and benefits of standardisation

High-quality and sustainable solutions: A broadly based, inclusive development process involving all relevant expertise and experience has resulted in e-government modules which offer universal and sustainable solutions and can be widely used.

Rapid and cost-efficient implementation of solutions: thanks to common standards and low-threshold accessibility, they can be used for procedures in both the public and private sectors. They enable synergies to be used, development costs cut, processing times reduced and interoperability supported.

Interoperability in the sense of compatibility between multiple solutions: cooperation on developing and applying the solutions means that they are mutually compatible, which simplifies networking with other solutions and makes the Austrian e-government landscape highly scalable.

Principles for standards

Existing standards are used and reused
Interoperable
Universally applicable
Accessible and widely available
Jointly developed

Initiatives to do with e-government in Austria which are suitable for standardisation are worked on jointly within the BLSG partnership. Not every initiative, way of implementing them in practice or project outcome connected with e-government in Austria is suitable for being made a standard.

Decisions on the operational implementation of new e-government standards or the updating of existing ones are made by working groups and project groups under the auspices of the BLSG partnership.

In order to be able to respond promptly to all kinds of new developments, and thereby ensure that e-government modules remain relevant and sustainable, standards are subject to regular evaluation.

Standards in Austrian public administration

ID Austria

The ID Austria is a form of online electronic ID. It can be used to verify your identity to a government authority or – as defined in law – uniquely identify and authenticate yourself. One significant feature of the ID Austria is that it can be used to generate a qualified electronic signature. This enables you to sign applications or agreements for which a handwritten signature would otherwise be required. In addition to its practical benefits in relation to dealing with the authorities, the ID Austria can also be used privately, for example to guarantee maximum security in Internet transactions.

Modules for online procedures

Various modules – MOAs – have been defined as standards and are used in online procedures.

Open (Government) Data (OGD)

Open Government is an umbrella term for different concepts and visions for particular aspects of how the state and public administration service could be opened up. Open Government Data describes those databases which are not related to individuals and are not part of critical infrastructure and can be made freely accessible in the interests of the general public, with no restrictions on their use, distribution and reuse. In Austria, it is the data.gv.at platform that makes open data from the public administration agencies available.

Online standards in public administration (examples)

Product descriptions of certain components can also be found here: T echnical framework for digital public administration.

Electronic proof of identity – Security Layer: This is used to securely identify the parties involved in digital processes.
Dual delivery: A standard enabling the use of multiple delivery channels.
Diacritic characters: Includes the basic principles of Unicode, the legal framework for the use of diacritic characters, and describes technical usage in practice.
XML input protocol: XML specification for electronic input under the convention on the "Electronic submission of requests".
XML search queries via online services: This describes a generic protocol for search queries when using online e-government services.
XML schema for EDIDOC: This is an XML schema which describes generally applicable administrative information including internal structures and attributes in public administration agencies.
EDIDOC (Electronic Data Interchange for Documents) is used to exchange electronic files, business cases and business sub-cases across all filing systems installed in Austria.
Administrative registers: Interfaces and usage scenarios; standards for optimising the register landscape to simplify the links between existing IT solutions and individual administrative registers.
Digital long-term archiving of administrative information: Guidelines on the long-term archiving of electronic records. The standard includes the basic principles of the legal, organisational and technical frameworks and defines the processes for transferring data to long-term archives and requesting archive material from them.