Foreign nationals information portal
Optimising data exchange between the Federal Office and offices responsible for managing foreign nationals
The foreign nationals information portal is primarily the bundled provision of information for all authorities that deal with foreign nationals. The portal can also be used to access information about current projects such as the electronic residence title (eAT), the electronic travel document (eRA) and the exchange standard "XAusländer". In addition, it provides central access to the Federal Office's disbursements.
The Federal Office as a central information platform using the latest technologies
The decentralised implementation of the asylum process and the fact that work to promote integration is carried out throughout Germany not only guarantees that lines of communication are kept short but also requires powerful information technology focused on the specialist work processes. The Federal Office has taken on the growing challenges and by using the latest technologies it has allowed the specialist tasks to be implemented effectively and rationally. This also means that the exchange of data between stakeholders is optimised. The Federal Office is facing the challenge of linking up the stakeholders' (e.g. local foreign affairs offices') different system landscapes with each other.
Current services
Today there are two different processes available for exchanging data with the Federal Office. The basic objective is to provide information in the medium term for all the local foreign affairs offices, ministries and for all the authorities and courts managing foreign nationals at Federal, regional and local authority level.
The information portal will support cross-authority communication, promote the recording of parallel and/or similar business processes and thereby help to increase efficiency in dealing with tasks and to standardise organisational structures. The user can access the relevant information, documents and legal regulations at EU, Federal and regional level in a bundled form and use these to handle foreign national cases. Additional information about the projects on the electronic residence title (eAT), electronic travel document (eRA) and the XAusländer national exchange standard is also stored in the portal. It serves both as an access portal for the existing applications and those still to be developed by the Federal Office for dealing with foreign nationals. It also offers the possibility of communicating electronically.
Access via the authorities' network "Deutschland Online Infrastruktur" (DOI)
At the end of 2008, a prototype in PHP was developed as an initial stage. This was then tested and evaluated until May 2009, with approximately 100 representatives from local foreign affairs offices and officers responsible for foreign nationals from the regional interior ministries. The knowledge gained from this was fed into the initial structuring stage of the information portal.
Following the prototype phase the foreign nationals information portal was made available on 25 June 2010 to all foreign affairs offices and regional interior ministries via the authorities' network Deutschland Online Infrastruktur (DOI) .
