Estonia's Rescue Board rolls out new online safety portal
The Rescue Board launched a new online safety portal on Thursday that will bring all of the agency's online services together into one place and make it more convenient for users ranging from fire safety experts, chimney sweeps and volunteer rescuers to local governments to exchange information with the Rescue Board.
"Communication with the state is increasingly moving online, and it's crucial that e-services are convenient for users," Maret Rannala, director of the Rescue Board's Safety Oversight Department, said according to a press release.
"Until now, all of the Rescue Board's e-services were all separate and different from one another, which made it difficult to find and use them," Rannala explained. "Now all [our] e-services are conveniently located in one, easy to understand place."
The new safety portal can be used among other things to submit fire safety reports and operational maps, book appointments with inspectors; stovemakers and chimney sweeps can also submit information about heating systems.
Users only have to authenticate themselves when logging in once, after which they can access all the applications they need.
Hipe Israel, Rescue and Emergency Services Department director at the IT and Development Center of the Ministry of the Interior (SMIT) said on behalf of the rest of the development team that she was pleased that the safety portal already includes eight services, but will soon be expanded to include a further four.
"The launch of the new safety portal will make development even easier from SMIT's perspective — largely due to the fact that the portal's basic services, architecture and user interface components are already in place for future upgrades. Going forward, it will be easier to launch new services on the portal, which will reduce time and money costs."
Rescue Board communications adviser Berit-Helena Lamp nonetheless confirmed to ERR News on Thursday that the agency does not intend to make the new online portal available in Russian or English.
The Rescue Board's new safety portal was developed by SMIT in cooperation with the agency. The implementation of the agency's public portal and new e-services development project was financed from the European Regional Development Fund (ERDF) with a total of €197,376.
The Rescue Board is a government agency under Estonia's Ministry of the Interior.
Click here (link in Estonian) to visit the Rescue Board's new online safety portal.
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Editor: Aili Vahtla
