Matching and Linking Platform for the CRA

Project Idea

Kosovo as a newly emerging democratic society is undergoing a multilayer transition process, including a transition phase in collecting and building a comprehensive, reliable and accurate civil status registration system for its population, including its historical data.

In 1999, the vast majority of Kosovo’s civil status registers were destroyed or displaced. These registers contained records of births, marriages and deaths for the period from after World War II to the time of their displacement.

With the support of the European Union, each page of these registers was photographed and printed in order to create hard-copy registers, and certified by European Union Rule of Law Mission prior to be handed over to the CRA (Civil Registration Agency). These hard-copy registers were sent to the Municipalities and are used as a reference for verification purposes. As a follow up, data from the digital images were digitized leading to the creation of the CCEA (Certified Copy E-Archive). These scanned and digitized records will serve as a source to further contribute to the reliability of civil status data by providing an archive of the citizens for events which took place before 10 June 1999.

Independently from the above-mentioned activities, in the early 2000s activities were undertaken to create the CCSR (Central Civil Status Registry) by means of merging the databases.

In order to provide consistent, secure, accurate and integer civil status data available at the central and local levels, one of the main goals of the CRA (Civil Registration Agency) is to compile all information pertaining to the same individual in such a way that it will be accessible at the central and local level through a single search. The realization of this goal involves the implementation of a technical solution that establishes a functional connection between the CCEA and the CCSR by matching and linking data from these different sources.

The Web Based Software for Matching and Linking is a flexible management system that effectively manages the matching and linking processes between the records from CCEA and CCSR. The implementation of Web Based Software for Matching and Linking will allow integrating responsibilities and centralizing control of the common processes related to data matching and linking from CCEA and CCSR as well as analyzing these data and perform corrective and preventive action on it. Given the plans of CRA to replicate the exercise foreseen under the project implemented by DRC (Danish Refugee Council) to other areas, they will be able to utilize the software developed for the matching and linking operation between CCEA and CCSR for this purpose.

Tech Stack