The Federal Office of Administration (BVA) and the Federal Employment Agency (BA) have signed a cooperation agreement which provides the basis for a multi-year cooperation in the area of register modernisation. The project was agreed in close cooperation between the Federal Ministry of the Interior and Community (BMI), the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (BMAS), the BA, the BVA and the Free and Hanseatic City of Bremen.

Andrea Nahles, Chair of the Executive Board of the BA: 
“With the modernisation of the data exchange framework, citizens and businesses only have to submit their required data and supporting documents once when using administrative services – in line with the “once only principle”. The data and supporting documents submitted can then be used for further administrative services – including those provided by other public authorities.
The goal here is to reduce workloads and take advantage of the opportunities offered by automation. In the future, we want the data to do the hard work, not people.”

When public authorities exchange data with each other on an automated basis, the clear identification of the persons in the registers is necessary in order to prevent mix-ups. Therefore, as the first step, the implementation of the Identification Numbers Act, which is part of the Register Modernisation Act, is an essential prerequisite. Accordingly, the identification number – which is equivalent to the tax identification number – and other data are being transferred from the central database of the Federal Central Tax Office to the respective registers and stored there. This is done via the retrieval of the necessary data at the BVA. In this context, the BVA carries out the tasks of the register modernisation authority. It develops and makes the specialist procedure for retrieving the identity data available, known as the IDA procedure, and sends the identification numbers and further (basic) data to the registering authorities and public offices, including the BA.

The first sub-project to be implemented is to link the BA to the IDA procedure by the end of 2025. This will create the basis for managing administrative services on a completely digital basis. For citizens, this means that in the future, supporting documents – such as a pension certificate – will only have to be submitted once. Once submitted, documents don’t have to be submitted again in the case of new administrative processes.

Data protection is a top priority in the new procedure. What is known as a data protection cockpit, which is provided by the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen on behalf of the BVA, allows citizens to check online which public office has carried out a data transfer with the use of the identification number, when, for what purpose and with what content.

Wichtig:The public authorities in Germany have numerous registers and data bases in which citizens’ data, records and supporting documents are kept, such as the register of residents, the commercial register, the land register and the tax register. The federal structure of Germany means that there are many different registers and filing systems that contain similar content across regional boundaries, offer little transparency in terms of data storage, and frequently have insufficient interfaces, for improved exchanges of data, for example. This means that citizens frequently have to provide the same data or supporting documents for administrative procedures every time they have to deal with a different public authority, leading to a considerable amount of bureaucracy. To improve the services to citizens, the government has therefore introduced a variety of new legislation, including the Online Access Act and the Register Modernisation Act.