In Austria, the delivery of official documents takes place via various channels; the type of delivery (electronic or postal) depends on the respective authority. Sometimes there is no possibility of electronic delivery at all and, in these cases, the dispatch is done exclusively by postal delivery. This implies a high administrative burden such as costs for printing, enveloping and shipping. Sometimes there is significant time spent on the recipient side as well. This includes walking time to post offices in the case of documents that need a proof of delivery when the recipient could not be met at the first delivery attempt.
The eDelivery project was launched with the Deregulation Act 2017, to accelerate electronic communication between the administration, citizens and businesses in the age of progressive digitisation. It has set itself the goal of providing a uniform overview of official documents for citizens and businesses, and to simplify the registration process for electronic delivery. Within a two-step change in law and architecture, the first step was the introduction of the so-called display module in May 2018. This has created new levels of convenience for the recipients by collecting all electronically delivered messages in one place. Thus, multiple logins into the mailboxes of different delivery systems where a recipient can be registered, are no longer required. The sender side is to be simplified to ensure the complete accessibility of the recipients, so that the entire savings potential of electronic deliveries can be achieved.
The amendments of the Federal Act on the Service of Official Documents adopted in December 2018 aimed to introduce an overall directory of all delivery systems. This is to reach all potential recipients of electronic deliveries under the Federal Act on the Service of Official Documents. This allows the senders to choose the electronic delivery system and no longer binds them to the system where the recipient was registered. By creating this overall directory for electronically addressable recipients, only one single interface needs to be addressed in the case of an electronic delivery. Also, the registration to the electronic delivery by citizens and businesses is now easy via the display module.
Electronic delivery offers citizens and businesses the ability to easily and securely receive government documents electronically. It does not replace or displace postal delivery, but is seen as an additional service. One of the key benefits is that there is no longer any need to go to a post office to pick up an official document where a proof of delivery is required. Due to the largely paperless digital handling of communication between citizens or companies and authorities, more efficient and resource-saving processes can be applied on both sides. By that, the electronic communication between the authorities, citizens and companies can be accelerated in the age of digitisation and save time and money.