The Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN) launches a new online citizenship platform to help speed up nationality applications in Portugal. This platform aims to make the process faster by using technology to automate and digitize many steps involved in the procedure. The IRN hopes this will increase its ability to process applications by 50%.
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Portugal New Citizenship Platform
This new platform is named Nationality Platform. It will manage all stages of nationality and citizenship applications from the submission of documents to the final decision. The aim is to reduce slow and inefficient paperwork.
The platform will also use artificial intelligence (AI) to help extract information from the application forms and organize them according to the type of application. By doing this, the platform will make the process faster and more efficient for both applicants and the people working on these cases.
Currently, processing a citizenship application can take up to two hours. The IRN believes the new platform could reduce this time to just 30 minutes. This improvement will be possible because of automation. Employees will not have to manually process as many documents. Instead, they will focus on verifying the information uploaded by the system.
IRN said in the statement:
This is expected to increase the capacity of services to process nationality processes by 50% and allow the dematerialisation of operations associated with nationality processes, from the entry of the application and respective documents, analysis and final decision
Artificial intelligence will play a major role in this transformation. It will read the applicant’s documents and extract the necessary data. The platform will also classify each application and assign it to the appropriate category which will ensure that the correct steps are followed for each case.
This automation will allow employees to focus on checking the uploaded data rather than entering it manually which will automatically speed up the whole process.
Location To Launch Citizenship Platform
The IRN plans to launch this citizenship platform in two main locations which will be the Central Registry Office in Lisbon and the Central Archive of Porto. After this, it will expand to 16 more offices across Portugal by November 4, 2024. The new platform will make the nationality process more efficient in these offices to process applications.
The Secretary of State for Justice, Maria José Barros, stated:
The security in the verification and validation of all elements, the bureaucracy in receiving applications, the multiple manual and redundant tasks, cause bottlenecks in the processing of nationality applications
This new platform will help fix some of the major delays in the nationality process. She pointed out that many tasks are currently done manually which is slowing down the process. This new platform will reduce these delays and allow applications to be processed faster.
Minster said:
This new technology will help reduce pending applications, because there is nothing worse than receiving one, having to wait a long time for it
Reduce Paperwork And Risk Of Fraud
One of the main problems in the current system is that they are relying on paper documents. Handling paper creates unnecessary delays and increases the risk of fraud. The new platform will digitize these documents and make the process smoother and more secure.
IRN highlighted:
In the area of Nationality, the reception of paper documentation is the main source of inefficiencies, adding bureaucratic and logistical burdens and the risk of fraud to the process
In 2022, the IRN received a record 230,000 applications for Portuguese nationality. As more people apply each year, the system has struggled to keep up. By digitizing documents and using AI, the new platform will help tackle this growing demand.
Applicants will be able to check online to see how their applications are going. The IRN believes that this will make it easier for people who are applying to avoid waiting for a lengthy period of time.
Support For Legal Professionals
IRN introduced an online channel for lawyers and solicitors to submit nationality applications in 2023. Over 53,000 applications have already been processed through this platform. It has reduced the pressure on IRN staff and cut down the time needed to process applications.
The new Nationality Platform will make it easier for legal professionals to submit and track applications, and it will help reduce the burden on employees.
IRN said:
This measure has contributed to increasing the efficiency of services, reducing the pressure on service and the bureaucratic and logistical burden associated with receiving paper documentation
The Recovery And Resilience Plan Funding
The Recovery and Resilience Plan (RRP) has funded this project. They invested with initial amount of 1.4 million euros. The project aims to improve public services through the use of new technology.
The IRN hopes that this investment will make a big difference in how applications for citizenship are handled which will increase results and cut down on delays.
Filomena Rosa, the President of the IRN, has highlighted the importance of this platform in delivering more efficient services. She also noted that the platform is integrated with the civil registry system.
Once an applicant’s nationality is granted, their birth certificate will be automatically updated. This will save even more time as the process becomes fully digitized and linked to other public records.
