January the 7th, 2022 - The popular Croatian e-Citizens platform (e-Gradjani) has allowed people needing to visit various offices with various pieces of paper in order to get their hands on other pieces of paper to go through the process from home. As of today, 100 different services are available.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the Croatian e-Citizens platform is a project of the Croatian Government that provides information and electronic services to both individuals and enterprises in one place and enables much more quick and easy communication with public administration. As such, people and businesses alike can access public electronic services provided by public sector bodies on their own behalf, on behalf of their children or persons for whom they're guardians, as well as on behalf of their business entity.

The main goal of these public electronic services is to save people's time, provide communication from anywhere and quickly and efficiently resolve requests addressed to public sector bodies, without the need for people to visit any of these institutions in person, replacing it all with efficient and time saving digital technologies.

The redesign of the Croatian e-Citizens platform, which took place in 2021, focused on people's needs and the way in which individuals use their digital identities. A new element has been introduced - a navigation bar, which enables the functionality of a single login and logout, accessibility assistance (for those with dyslexia), and the retrieving of user data via an OIB, regardless of whether a natural person or a business user is in question. The redesigned Croatian e-Citizens platform and system has also provided new functionality through which a parent can access a service for their child and an authorised person can do the same for a company.

Today, the services offered on the Croatian e-Citizens platform are used by more than 1.57 million people across Croatia, whose number has increased by almost 25 percent in the past year alone. This was likely aided by the coronavirus pandemic and the restrictions which came with it.

Out of a total of 100 services available on the e-Citizens platform today, the most frequently used services are the ones for accessing a EU digital COVID certificate, e-Registry books, e-services of the Ministry of the Interior (MUP), e-Tax and the e-Health Portal. The services have been used almost 81 million times, and in 2021 alone more than 33.5 million times.

The newest, 100th service, provided by the State Geodetic Administration, enables the submission of a geodetic study of infrastructure to the competent cadastral office for review and confirmation electronically, and the ability to search, receive and distribute information on current or planned construction works and the export of that information to infrastructure owners/managers.

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September the 17th, 2021 - The Croatian 2021 e-Census, the very first of its kind, is going well so far. The powers that be have stated that there has been a fantastic response and that the system has been functioning very well.

As Poslovni Dnevnik writes, the very first Croatian 2021 e-Census started being filled in and completed by Croatia's residents on Monday, it will continue that way until September the 26th. Most of those to have filled it in online reside in the City of Zagreb, and the least so far live in in Lika-Senj County. Slightly more than 320,000 residents of the country had self-registered through e-citizens by yesterday morning.

''We're more than satisfied, approximately 100,000 new people are being registered online daily. Zagreb boasts the largest pool of those people and most people there have registered themselves, but other counties are also present to a satisfactory extent,'' said Lidija Brković, CBS Director General, as a guest on the HRT show "Good Morning, Croatia/Dobro jutro, Hrvatska''.

Brkovic said that there was no system failure to speak of so far, but there were problems on Monday at around 13:00.

''New people could register themselves, but those who had already started filling it in online had problems for about 15 minutes in completing the questionnaire. We're more than satisfied with things so far, we've had a lot of positive comments and it's all very simple,'' said Brkovic, adding that it takes 15 to 20 minutes to list a family of four.

It is enough that only one family member in the household has an e-Citizens credential and that they'rethe reference person. People can also list grandparents, but if they live in another household they must also have an e-Citizens credential.

The questionnaire has about 60 questions. If you don’t answer a question that is mandatory, you can’t go any further. When you've finished the Croatian 2021 e-Census, you will receive a verification code that you need to keep hold of until the second stage of the census when you hand it over to the enumerator to show that you have completed the census.

In the last three days, there have been about 8500 more people using the e-Citizens platform, which is also excellent.

''People shouldn't worry about this data being connected to some other databases or registers, this is merely statistical data and it is all kept separate,'' explained Bernard Grsic, State Secretary of the Central State Office for the Digital Development of Society.

Enumerators are set to go out into the field on September the 26th. The second phase of the census lasts until October the 27th with the possibility of an extension.

''If you aren't home, they'll leave a message for you to contact them and arrange a time when they can come. They'll probably be able to come at any time during day. Everyone will get their census circles. The assumption is that people who work in the morning won't be at home. Not all family members have to be at home, but a person who is in must have their OIBs because they can't list them without it,'' said Brkovic.

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