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Albania

Integrated Registry of Citizens’ Housing (AL0046)

Overview

At-a-Glance

Action Plan: Albania Third Action Plan 2016 – 2018

Action Plan Cycle: 2016

Status: Inactive

Institutions

Lead Institution: Ministry of Internal Affairs

Support Institution(s): NA

Policy Areas

Citizenship and Immigration, Public Service Delivery, Records Management

IRM Review

IRM Report: Albania Progress Report 2016-2018

Starred: No

Early Results: Pending IRM Review

Design i

Verifiable: No

Relevant to OGP Values: Not Relevant

Potential Impact:

Implementation i

Completion:

Description

The registration of citizens housing will enable many services that can be offered to citizens from their house; these services will be redimensioned after the creation of this database. An important aspect of this service is the registration of Albanian emigrants housing. This will enable important information with extensive use of state and private institutions (the vote of emigrants, penalties at home and many other uses). The whole process will ensure the involvement of citizens in order to verify the accuracy and integrity of datas; an example for this is that the data on registration of emigrants will be obtained through selfdeclaration. Also, feedback from citizens will be taken through urban offices and civil registry offices spread across the whole country. Status quo or problem addressed by the commitment There is a lack of the Integrated Registry of Citizens’ Housing. Main Objective The registration of citizens housing will enable many services that can be offered to citizens from their house; these services will be redimensioned after the creation of this database. One aspect of this service is the census of emigrants. This will enable important information with extensive use of state and private institutions (the vote of emigrants, penalties at home and many other uses). - Increase quality of services to the citizens through housing registry - Melting of the National Address Registry with the Civil Status Registry - Populating the addresses of residents.

IRM Midterm Status Summary

3. Integrated Registry of Citizens’ Housing[Note61: The correct title of this commitment in English is 'Integrated registry of citizens’ residence' (Alb. 'Regjistri i integruar i banesave te shtetasve'). The commitment’s description uses the same terminology as in the action plan. However, the report will elaborate as per the correct term in English.]

Commitment Text:

There is a lack of the Integrated Registry of Citizens’ Housing.

The registration of citizens housing will enable many services that can be offered to citizens from their house; these services will be redimensioned after the creation of this database.

An important aspect of this service is the registration of Albanian emigrants housing. This will enable important information with extensive use of state and private institutions (the vote of emigrants, penalties at home and many other uses).

The whole process will ensure the involvement of citizens in order to verify the accuracy and integrity of datas; an example for this is that the data on registration of emigrants will be obtained through self-declaration. Also, feedback from citizens will be taken through urban offices and civil registry offices spread across the whole country.

The registration of citizens housing will enable many services that can be offered to citizens from their house; these services will be redimensioned after the creation of this database. One aspect of this service is the census of emigrants. This will enable important information with extensive use of state and private institutions (the vote of emigrants, penalties at home and many other uses).

- Increase quality of services to the citizens through housing registry

- Melting of the National Address Registry with the Civil Status Registry

- Populating the addresses of residents

Responsible institution: Ministry of Interior

Supporting institution(s): N/A

Start date: 2016 End date: 2018

Context and Objectives

According to the civil registry of Albanian citizens, Albania’s population is approximately 4.3 million, while the actual number of Albanian residents is approximated to be 2.88 million as of January 2017.[Note62: INSTAT, http://www.instat.gov.al/al/temat/treguesit-demografikë-dhe-socialë/popullsia/publikimet/2017/popullsia-e-shqipërisë-1-janar-2017/. ] Over the past 25 years, it is estimated that nearly 1.4 million Albanian citizens have emigrated, mostly to western European countries (Italy, Greece, Germany, France, United Kingdom, etc.), as well as to the United States, Canada, and Australia.[Note63: European Commission Report, http://ec.europa.eu/social/BlobServlet?docId=8835&langId=en.] Additionally, internal migration has been a widespread and constant phenomenon: from 1992–2000, about 1.3 million people migrated internally, toward urban centers as well as toward rural areas, including the peri-urban areas of Tirana, Durres, Shkodra, Fier, and Korca.[Note64: Ibid. ]

These migratory movements have not been registered in the civil registry of Albanian nationals, thus causing confusion for a number of public services provided by the state and for other citizens’ rights and obligations, such as voting rights and social welfare.

The integrated registry of citizens’ residence aims to create an accurate database integrated with the civil registry which contains all data of citizens (name, birthday, identification number, etc.) including their residential address. According to the action plan, this will offer online access to services for citizens. A service this commitment aims to achieve is the census of emigrants, through the integrated registry of citizens’ housing. Ultimately, the action plan suggests that the Civil Status registry will be integrated with the National Address registry and contain all the information about Albanian nationals in one place, including their updated residence. Although this commitment targets a very important concern in Albania, its relevance to OGP values is unclear. The registry of citizens’ housing will only be accessible to public authorities.

While this commitment clearly lays out its intended outcome (and subsequent services provided), the commitment text itself does not specify the measurable steps the Ministry of Internal Affairs will take to create an integrated registry of citizens’ housing. It is also not clear how the registry would increase quality of services for citizens and, more specifically, how the government would go about conducting a census of migrants. The specificity of this commitment is low, for the above reasons.

If fully implemented, the potential impact of this commitment is minor. Establishing an integrated registry facilitates the government’s work to verify the accuracy of migratory movements and aggregate citizen data in one place. However, due to the low specificity of the commitment, the IRM researcher cannot consider potential impact to be anything greater than an incremental step in registering migratory movements.

Completion

After clarifying the details of this commitment’s activities, the IRM researcher found that the government envisioned three steps: 1) amend law no. 9270 on the system of addresses, 2) launch the database population process, and 3) pilot the housing registry. The database population process involves assigning new codes to households, and then entering data (e.g. the households’ number of residents, professions) in the database. The integrated registry of citizens’ residence was announced by the Minister of Interior in November 2015.[Note65: Ministry of Interior, http://www.punetebrendshme.gov.al/al/newsroom/fjalime/prezantohet-projekti-i-regjistrimit-te-adresave-dhe-shtetasve-popullimi&page=2. ]

In September 2016, the Parliament of Albania adopted the law no. 89/2016 'On some amendments to the ‘Law no. 9270 date 29.07.2004 on the system of addresses’, as amended.'[Note66: Law 89/2016, https://www.parlament.al/wp-content/uploads/2016/07/ligj-nr-89-dt-15-9-2016.pdf. ] In October 2016, the database population process was launched.[Note67: See Minister of Interior statement launching the process, http://www.punetebrendshme.gov.al/al/te-rejat/lajme/vlore-tahiri-nis-procesi-i-popullimit-punesohen-1200-te-rinj-per-regjistrimin-e-shqiptareve. ] By December 2016, the new system of addresses was in place in the pilot municipalities. Citizens in the pilot municipalities (Tirana, Vlora, Durres) were told to report their residential and alternative addresses in the offices of civil registry at local government units by July 2017. However, this deadline was not realistic: many citizens were not aware of the requirement and faced fines of 10,000 ALL (approximately 90 USD), after which the authorities proposed to postpone the deadline.[Note68: As a result, it was requested to postpone the deadline, http://www.panorama.com.al/adresat-e-reja-kaos-ne-zyrat-e-gjendjes-civile-nga-sot-nis-vendosja-e-gjobave/. ]

The government representative for this commitment reported that the piloting of the Registry is under way. In the pilot phase, nearly 600,000 entries of residences have been verified by the time of the preparation of this report and there are another 800,000 to be verified.[Note69: Interview with Loran Sevi, Ministry of Interior, October 2017.] The piloting phase is being carried out in cooperation with the Electricity Power Distribution Operator, a public company.[Note70: The project is implemented by the MoI and the Operator’s duty in this context was to help the Ministry with information about the residents/buildings with whom the company has a power supply contract. Telephone interview with Adri Kola, October 2017.] However, it remains unclear when the project will be completed at the national level.

Early Results

Across three focus group organized by the IRM researcher, a majority of respondents (ordinary citizens) were familiar with this commitment.[Note71: Focus group discussions were carried out with young people (30 August 2017), women (31 August 2017) and participants from remote and rural areas (4 September 2017).] Civil society representatives and citizens participating in the focus group discussions emphasized the importance of this project for better public services, control of the territory and public safety, electoral processes, etc.

However, the Registry’s datasets will be in use for public authorities only. Civil society representatives suggest that lack of public access to the Register makes the OGP relevance of this commitment questionable, despite its importance.

Next Steps

As written, the commitment addresses an important issue in Albania, and can significantly improve state institutions’ activities in public service delivery. However, the commitment is currently not relevant to any OGP values. The IRM researcher recommends that this commitment be taken forward into the next action, with an amendment to also include an open data initiative. This will provide public access to the integrated registry. In respect of the personal data protection legislation, some of the information which could be made publicly accessible includes: number of residences and voters per residence area, voting stations and voters lists, ratio of resident population and emigrants per area (village, town, region), etc. Such information may be useful not only for municipal and community planning purposes but also for election monitoring.

Albania's Commitments

  1. Transparency of government reporting

    AL0061, 2018, E-Government

  2. E-government

    AL0062, 2018, E-Government

  3. Improved business regulation

    AL0063, 2018, Capacity Building

  4. Safe communities

    AL0064, 2018, Anti-Corruption Institutions

  5. Improvement of database/portal with coordinators’ data of the right to information and transparency programs

    AL0044, 2016, E-Government

  6. Budget transparency

    AL0045, 2016, E-Government

  7. Integrated Registry of Citizens’ Housing

    AL0046, 2016, Citizenship and Immigration

  8. Establishment of electronic Registry for public notification and consultation

    AL0047, 2016, E-Government

  9. Digital archive

    AL0048, 2016, E-Government

  10. Creating a database for archiving and publication of research funds and programs in Albania

    AL0049, 2016, E-Government

  11. Commitment to publish online central and local government legislation in open systems and for free

    AL0050, 2016, Capacity Building

  12. Commitment to Open Standards for Contracting

    AL0051, 2016, E-Government

  13. Starred commitment Implementation of the Law "On protection of whistleblowers", capacity building, amendments and its bylaws

    AL0052, 2016, Anti-Corruption Institutions

  14. Provision of electronic services

    AL0053, 2016, Capacity Building

  15. Establishment of multifunctional centralized system for building permits

    AL0054, 2016, Capacity Building

  16. Establishment and distribution of digital counters

    AL0055, 2016, E-Government

  17. Service passport standardization

    AL0056, 2016, Capacity Building

  18. Citizen Card

    AL0057, 2016, Capacity Building

  19. Electronic system of registration of e-prescription in the Republic of Albania

    AL0058, 2016, E-Government

  20. Electronic Monitoring System of Forests

    AL0059, 2016, Anti-Corruption Institutions

  21. Integrated electronic system for professional licensing of individuals and legal entities that will operate in the field of study design and supervision of commissioning of construction works

    AL0060, 2016, E-Government

  22. Standardization of corruption complaints

    AL0031, 2014, Anti-Corruption Institutions

  23. Electronic registry of energy and industry permits

    AL0032, 2014, E-Government

  24. Implementation of public expenses module in "open data" format

    AL0033, 2014, E-Government

  25. Promoting OGP values among local authorities

    AL0034, 2014, OGP

  26. Database on Economic Assitance Beneficiaries

    AL0035, 2014, E-Government

  27. Electronic portal on water resources administration and management

    AL0036, 2014, E-Government

  28. Single window

    AL0037, 2014, E-Government

  29. Electronic access to protected areas

    AL0038, 2014, E-Government

  30. National geoportal

    AL0039, 2014, E-Government

  31. E-­Albania

    AL0040, 2014, E-Government

  32. E-­document

    AL0041, 2014, E-Government

  33. Starred commitment Law on whistleblowers protection

    AL0042, 2014, Legislation & Regulation

  34. Police Service Offices

    AL0043, 2014, E-Government

  35. Open data portal

    AL0001, 2012, Open Data

  36. e-Acts

    AL0002, 2012, E-Government

  37. e-Parliament

    AL0003, 2012, E-Government

  38. Extension of the governmental network, GOVNET

    AL0004, 2012, E-Government

  39. e-government interoperability framework, e-GIF

    AL0005, 2012, E-Government

  40. Government datacenter

    AL0006, 2012, E-Government

  41. Excise system

    AL0007, 2012, E-Government

  42. Starting of the e-Tax system

    AL0008, 2012, E-Government

  43. Starred commitment Online state matura

    AL0009, 2012, E-Government

  44. The regulation on ethics in research and publishing

    AL0010, 2012, Education

  45. Digitalization of higher education accreditation process

    AL0011, 2012, E-Government

  46. U-Gov system

    AL0012, 2012, E-Government

  47. Online inspections of courts and judicial hearings

    AL0013, 2012, E-Government

  48. Digitalization of the file transfer process

    AL0014, 2012, Judiciary

  49. e-Employment project

    AL0015, 2012, E-Government

  50. e-Concessions procedures

    AL0016, 2012, E-Government

  51. Amendment of the law “on the right to information for official documents”

    AL0017, 2012, Justice

  52. Drafting a new law on "notice and consultation"

    AL0018, 2012, Legislation & Regulation

  53. Tracking project

    AL0019, 2012, E-Government

  54. Digitalization of the notary register

    AL0020, 2012, E-Government

  55. Online citizens’ claims in the judiciary system

    AL0021, 2012, E-Government

  56. Work inspection, online complaint

    AL0022, 2012, E-Government

  57. Financial module of all educational institutions

    AL0023, 2012, Education

  58. Starred commitment Audio and video recording of judicial hearings

    AL0024, 2012, E-Government

  59. Starred commitment e-Albania portal

    AL0025, 2012, E-Government

  60. e-Inspection portal

    AL0026, 2012, E-Government

  61. Starred commitment Portal www.gjykata.gov.al

    AL0027, 2012, E-Government

  62. Disclosure of the list of payments made daily by the government units

    AL0028, 2012, Fiscal Transparency

  63. e-Procurement system for all small purchases of public procurement

    AL0029, 2012, E-Government

  64. Implementation of the EITI recommendations

    AL0030, 2012, Extractive Industries