eGovernment in Austria
January 2015
[
22
]
the portal network of public authorities. Each request to calculate an ssPIN is recorded
by the sourcePIN Register Authority.
The electronic representation of mandates on citizen card. An achievement of the citizen
card concept is the possibility to represent mandates electronically. The sourcePIN
Register Authority electronically signs a mandate representation dataset and thus
prevents forgery. A service to revoke mandates online over the Internet is provided by
the sourcePIN authority.
eGovernment Sectors Delimitation Regulation
For the purpose of generating sector-specific personal identifiers, each public sector data
application needs to be assigned to a sector of State activity. The eGovernment Sector
Delimitation Regulation defines the designations and the sector-identifiers.
Supplementary Register Regulation
This regulation plays an important role in the implementation of the citizen card concept,
enabling natural persons and other affected parties to be registered in the supplementary
register, who, due to legal restrictions, are not permitted to be entered into the primary
registers.
The supplementary register is comprised of two registers: for natural persons and for other
concerned parties. The eGovernment Act allows the sourcePIN Register Authority to take
over the duties of service provider for the Ministry of Interior for the supplementary register
for natural persons and for the Ministry of Finance for the second supplementary register.
The Electronic Signature Law and Ordinance
The electronic signature law and the accompanying Ordinance lay down the fundamental
principles of electronic signatures in accordance with the European signature Directive. The
electronic signature law differentiates between three types of signatures: simple, advanced
and qualified. The citizen card uses a qualified signature. According to the signature law, a
qualified signature is equal to that of a handwritten signature. This means that you can sign
electronic contracts with a qualified signature and they will be as legally binding as if the
contract was signed by hand. The electronic signature law also specifies requirements for
businesses that issue qualified certificates (certificate providers), as well as regulations for
the authentication of foreign certificates.
General Administrative Procedures Act
The General Administrative Procedures Act lays down the basic principles of administrative
procedures. Article 13 is relevant to eGovernment in that it regulates the ways with which
public authorities and citizens can communicate with each other, such as the transmission
of applications by email or Web forms. The authority’s website lists the addresses that
application forms can be sent to, whether an electronic signature is needed and which
formats are recommended or required for the application.
Since 1 January 2011, documents issued by public authorities require a handwritten
signature, certification or 'official signature'. All electronic documents of written copies from
public authorities are required to have an 'official signature' affixed to them. The 'official
|