Baden-Württemberg and Saxony launch the jointly developed „Online Access Act Hub“. The platform provides standardized interfaces and building blocks for the efficient development of online citizen services for municipal and state administrations.
The state of Baden-Württemberg and the Free State of Saxony have signed another cooperation agreement, launching the jointly developed „Online Access Act (OZG) Hub“. The platform provides standardized interfaces and building blocks that facilitate the development of online services for municipal and state administrations.
Both states have been working closely together since 2015 in the development of the service portals „service-bw“ and „Amt24“. These platforms offer their citizens, businesses, and authorities modern and secure e-government services. This successful collaboration is now being expanded and deepened.
Cooperation enables digital added value
„With the signing of this agreement, we build on our previous close collaboration and take our cooperation to a sustainable level. This once again shows that we are more successful together. This way, we create digital added value and can benefit from each other,“ said Stefan Krebs, the State Commissioner for Information Technology (CIO), at the launch of the OZG Hub.
„Providing 575 digital administrative services is a tremendous task. We can only achieve this together. I am pleased that we are expanding our long-standing cooperation with Baden-Württemberg. With the OZG Hub, we now have a tool at hand that makes administrative services faster, easier, and digitally available across the board. Ultimately, this benefits everyone – citizens, businesses, and the administration itself,“ said Prof. Thomas Popp, State Secretary for Digital Administration and Administrative Modernization and CIO of the Free State of Saxony.
OZG Hub
According to the Online Access Act, the federal government and the states are obliged to offer their administrative services digitally. Following the principle of „One for All“ (EfA), one state or a consortium of several states is responsible for the development and operation of a digital application process. Other states or municipalities can then reuse these online services and make them accessible to citizens, businesses, and other stakeholders through their service portals. However, these service portals often rely on different software and interfaces, which can make reuse more difficult both organizationally and technically.
With the OZG Hub, a platform with standardized interfaces is now available. Following a modular principle, the Hub provides different building blocks that others have already developed, allowing the creation of online services: payment functions, online authentication, map and other basic functions can be combined into any online service using the provided form tools. These are user-friendly, secure, and barrier-free. The platform is operated in an ISO 27001-certified data center in Germany. It meets the basic protection requirements according to the Federal Office for Information Security (BSI) and thus enables the operation of online services with a high level of security. The OZG Hub is a helpful and innovative tool for implementing the Online Access Act and further digitization in Germany. Other states can also utilize the OZG Hub and join the cooperation.
