The abolition of “Birth” and “Marital Status” certificates was announced by the Minister of Digital Governance, Dimitris Papastergiou, speaking on the program “Mismatches” of SKAI.

When asked about the internet speeds in Greece, Mr. Papastergiou said that “in terms of fixed speeds we have to try harder, indeed the latest records show that we are not doing well and we are calling the providers next week to see a little in which areas there are problems and to we also commit ourselves to what we give as there are currently more than a billion broadband programs running, but also the providers for the development programs”

“We are also above the price limit in fixed communications. At the moment big conglomerates are coming in and setting up the data centers and obviously it’s an oxymoron at a time when the fixed speeds don’t seem to be going as well as they should,” he added.

Regarding the issue of internet on the islands, Mr. Papastergiou said that “we have to agree on which underwater cables will fall, we have many islands and there must be an agreement also for large cities like Volos that have not developed optical fiber networks for the houses.”

Asked about the artificial intelligence assistant, Mr. Papastergiou said that “The Actionbot artificial intelligence assistant, which we built in December and has exceeded half a million questions, will do two things and one is to issue certificates with a simple voice command.”

He emphasized that “The second part, however, which is even more interesting, concerns the abolition of the certificates in a bill that is currently in consultation and next week will enter the committees of the Parliament, we are bringing something very brave with the Ministry of the Interior, the abolition of the certificates in a country where the data now exists to confirm each time even with a digital file. The first certificates we will abolish will be the “Birth” and “Marital status” because they are stored in the civil registry.”

When asked about the complaints about the leak of voter data and the case of Ms. Asimakopoulou, Mr. Papastergiou emphasized that “GDPR is strict and justice will find out what has been done, nobody likes this and even more so at a time when the effort is starting for postal voting. The two cases are not related and citizens should have confidence in the government’s digital systems as there was no breach in the systems, it was not a matter of hacking.”

“Government organizations should from now on adapt their information systems so that they draw the data from there.” pointed out Mr. Papastergiou.