Onlinezugangsgesetz (OZG)

The Onlinezugangsgesetz (OZG) is a German federal law that obliges federal, state, and municipal authorities to make their administrative services accessible via digital portals. The aim is to simplify access to government services for citizens and businesses, enabling applications, approvals, and other administrative processes to be handled entirely online — without the need for a personal visit.

The technical core of the OZG is the end-to-end digitalization of administrative processes: not only the submission of applications itself is to be digital, but the entire process from receipt through processing to the issuing of decisions. This requires a consistently digital infrastructure within public authorities, encompassing both the IT systems in use and the end devices employed.

For municipal administrations and state authorities, the OZG represents considerable pressure to modernize, as many processes have until now been paper-based or only partially digitalized. Authorities equipping their staff with digital work devices face the challenge of configuring these devices uniformly, operating them securely, and managing them in accordance with the data protection requirements that come with processing citizen data.

The decisive success factor in implementing the OZG is the reliability of the IT infrastructure deployed: digital administrative services can only be offered in a trustworthy manner if the end devices used by administrative staff are uniformly secured, kept up to date, and can be quickly restored in the event of loss or damage.

The digitalization of administrative services places concrete demands on end devices and IT infrastructure — demands that can only be met on a lasting basis if government devices are managed centrally and securely.