While in any of the European Union (EU) member states, we will be able to electronically request a certificate or document issued in Latvia for various work and personal matters. For example, proof of citizenship, a birth certificate, proof of residence, a college diploma, and more. You’ll agree, this will make our daily lives significantly easier, won’t you!? In the future, this capability will be provided by the OOTS platform, which is not merely a technological tool—it is a fundamental reform for a more efficient, transparent, and user-friendly public administration. However, its implementation requires clear legal frameworks, so we must act without delay to ensure that legislation supports this innovative solution and that we do not fall behind other Member States—we may even be among the pioneers.
The European Commission (EC) maintains that public authorities must be able to communicate with other public authorities in an easy, secure, and reliable manner. OOTS (One-Time Technical Systems) is an IT platform created by the EU to enable various EU national authorities to exchange data with one another—so that documents do not have to be sent from one country to another, have them translated, notarized, or pay for these processes, etc. The goal is the “once-only” principle. This means that information already available electronically at one agency can also be accessed by other agencies, and citizens and businesses do not have to submit the same documents repeatedly.
This will enable the ability to request and receive certificates from other EU countries via Latvian procedural portals (such as Latvija.gov.lv, ur.gov.lv), as well as to request certificates from Latvia while located in another EU country. The platform will become operational following the adoption of the Cabinet of Ministers’ “Regulations on the Technical System for the Once-Only Principle”; the adoption of these regulations is currently underway. We are developing the core functionality so that Latvia can exchange certificates with other member states, but OOTS will need to be integrated into all national and municipal portals where there may be a need to retrieve information from other EU countries.
OOTS – Latvia’s central hub, so we can retrieve documents from other Member States and submit them to them
We are currently testing the system together with our colleagues in Europe. It will be a major step forward when, through a ready-made IT solution, we will be able to exchange documents at any time, from anywhere in the world, to verify, for example, nationality, date of birth, education, and other details in various life situations.
The Cabinet of Ministers’ draft “Regulations on the Technical System for the Once-Only Principle” is based on an EU regulation aimed at assisting natural or legal persons in 21 specific life situations—such as working, studying, retiring, or starting a business—while they are in another country.
The regulation stipulates that all information must be available online in a user-friendly format. I can select a country and a life situation, and by clicking a link, find out exactly what steps to take next. By entering my personal data, the system in France, Italy, Slovakia, or another country will determine that I am from Latvia—at that moment, the “Once Only” technical system is activated. This helps retrieve data from Latvia, or, while in Latvia, data from another EU member state. The most well-known portals that will certainly be involved in obtaining certificates are Latvija.gov.lv, ur.gov.lv (the Enterprise Register of the Republic of Latvia), and others that provide state and municipal services. These portals will be able to integrate with the core system developed by “ZZ Dats,” which in turn can communicate with authorities in other member states and retrieve data from them.
EU residents will be able to log in to the OOTS platform using trusted authentication methods.
Benefits for both citizens and businesses
The “once-only” technical system platform will certainly be of frequent use to Latvian citizens in various everyday and work-related situations when they are abroad and need certain types of documents. The new system will enable residents to request the necessary information from a service provider and obtain the documents required to complete the service.
Similarly, residents of other Member States will be able to access such services while in Latvia. The certification of various documents will be significantly simplified! For example, it will be easier to complete formalities related to study, work, retirement, and other matters. In practice, this will mean that our residents can obtain certifications or documents on any European online procedure portal using Latvia’s national e-identification.
In the future, various national and municipal portals will incorporate an OOTS interface to retrieve the necessary documents. We will be able to exchange data between countries at the system level; there will be no need to manually attach documents, print them, translate them, or perform similar tasks. This will save time and money! For example, a company has a representative office in one of the EU member states and, when registering a subsidiary in Latvia, needs to obtain data on the parent company. To obtain the document, the owner finds the necessary portal, but all the information there is in German, and there may even be a fee for some of the requests. Then, after several days, the required certificate is sent via email; the entrepreneur must then save it on their computer and upload it to the relevant Latvian portal. These are all unnecessary steps, and there are also certain security risks involved. All of this can be replaced by obtaining the necessary confirmation through OOTS and requesting data from the EU country’s authorities where the parent company is registered.
When enrolling in a master’s program in France, a document certifying a bachelor’s degree is required. Accordingly, a prospective student can enter their personal data via OOTS without leaving the university’s website and obtain a certificate from a Latvian university confirming the bachelor’s degree earned here. Similarly, data can be requested from abroad while in Latvia. For example, if a young person from Spain comes to Latvia and wishes to study at a Latvian university, they will simply need to visit Latvija.gov.lv or the university’s website, enter their data, and use OOTS to request a certificate of their secondary education in Spain.
The ball is in the lawmakers’ court—the authorities need to give the green light
For now, the Cabinet of Ministers’ “Regulations on the Technical System of the Once-Only Principle” have not been adopted, and we cannot yet use the project in Latvia. The adoption of these regulations is currently being pursued, which, hopefully, could take place as early as 2025, as planned.
Once the specialists at “ZZ Dats” have completed the technical development of the OOTS platform and the Cabinet of Ministers’ “Regulations on the Technical System for the Once-Only Principle” have been approved, the participating institutions will need to make updates to their websites, etc., so that users can submit requests for certification.
In fact, for an institution ready to participate, there will be only a very small additional step to take. To begin using OOTS, submit requests, and receive documents, institutions will also incur additional expenses for which a budget must be allocated. However, for example, in a conversation with one of the institutions, it was pleasantly surprised by the upcoming opportunities and is already considering what data could be obtained using OOTS.
