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Data security/ Two projects over 90 million euros for e-Albania from the Balkan Investment Framework

2024-01-02 11:12:00, Ekonomi CNA

Data security/ Two projects over 90 million euros for e-Albania from the Balkan

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The government's digital infrastructure is expected to provide over 91 million euros in funding in the next two years in order to increase the capacity and security of online public services.

The projects were announced by the Western Balkans Investment Framework (WBIF) a joint initiative of the EU, financial institutions, donors that aims to increase the socio-economic development of the Balkans.

The first €64 million project aims at higher performance for government data and providing a more secure information exchange network for regional interoperability in the Western Balkans. Of the total funding of 64 million euros, 38.7 million euros will be provided by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD) loan, 18.3 million euros will be provided by the commitments of other donors from the WIBF initiative, 4 million euros funding from the Albanian government. The project is in the preparatory phase until December 2024.

The second project is "Expansion of the Government Network (GovNet) to ensure faster, reliable and secure communication between health service providers" with a value of 27 million euros and will be in the preparation phase until 2026. This the project will be financed in the amount of 19 million euros with an EBRD loan and around 7 million euros will be committed from the investment framework for the Balkans WIBF.

In the last 5 years, the Albanian government has made a major shift of its online services to the Internet, avoiding physical access to offices. However, the damages that the citizens suffered from the debunking of the data were great. Cyber ??attacks on government systems in the last two years made public all the sensitive data of Albanians that had to do with personal information, from properties to bank accounts.

So digital infrastructure is becoming as important and vital as physical infrastructure, roads, water and energy. Now that most of the government services are provided online and can be obtained from smart-phones, the government on the other hand is increasing the expenses for these services.

In 2024, the state budget will allocate 8.9 billion ALL, or 85 million euros, for the operation of e-Albania, while in 2018, the expenses for online services were only 2.3 billion

The National Information Society Agency (AKSHI) reports that there are currently 1,233 public services for citizens and business that are offered online and make up 95% of public services.

The remaining part belongs to services that definitely require the physical presence of citizens, such as the marriage ceremony in the Civil Status, the physical control of vehicles or the placement of fingerprints for applications for biometric, passport and ID documents.

There are about 3 million registered users on the e-Albania portal, while on average there are over 1.7 million applications and nearly 1 million documents that are generated with an electronic stamp every month.

AKSHI calculates that there are 60 electronic registers that interact in real time for each unique application, for Albanians and businesses anytime and anywhere./ Monitor Magazine