In a bid to accelerate the process of granting citizenship to foreigners, Portugal plans to launch a new platform with new functionalities, automation and artificial intelligence.
The new platform, which will be launched by Portugal’s Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN), is expected to increase the capacity of the services to process citizenship applications by 50 per cent, Schengen.News reports.
The new Nationality Platform will allow the dematerialisation of operations associated with nationality applications, from the submission of the application and respective documents, analysis and final decision.
New Platform Consisting of New Functionalities
The new portal consists of new functionalities, automation and artificial intelligence, according to a report from Observador.
The same notes that the new portal will start operating at the Central Registry Office in Lisbon and at Porto Central Archive, and should be extended from November 4 to November 16 branches operating in the Civil Registry services throughout the country.
The security in the verification and validation of all elements, the bureaucracy in receiving requests, the multiple manual and redundant tasks, cause bottlenecks in the processing of nationality requests.
Portugal’s government hopes the new technology will help to reduce the backlog of pending citizenship applications and eliminate one of the frustrating aspects of applying for citizenship, which is the long wait times.
Through the new platform, the employee will only have to validate the information uploaded, therefore the IRN estimates a reduction in the average time from about two hours to around half an hour.
The IRN has estimated that in the field of Nationality, the reception of paper documentation is the main reason for inefficiencies, adding logistical burdens and the risk of fraud to the process.
Over 63,000 Citizenship Applications in Portugal in First 4 Months of 2024
The figures from the Institute of Registries and Notaries (IRN) reveal that more than 63,000 applications for Portuguese citizenship have been registered in the first four months of this year.
In addition, the statistics from IRN reveal that there was a significant increase compared to last year’s same-period figures.
However, the increasing number of applications for citizenship brought notable challenges for the country’s authorities in terms of processing applications.
Tammy Cavaleiro, partner at Você Europeu, said that due to the increased number of citizenship applications, a large number of requests are being delayed.
In addition, last year, the IRN registered a total of 230,000 applications for Portugal nationality, accounting for the highest number ever.