Berlin drives the digital transformation of a 150-year-old administrative process: First fully digital birth notification transmitted in Germany

For the first time, a birth notification was transmitted fully digitally to a civil registry office—directly and machine-readably into the system used to record births.
This marks the digital breakthrough of a process that has remained largely unchanged for nearly 150 years, ever since the German Civil Status Act came into force in 1876. Until now, the workflow relied heavily on paper forms, handwritten signatures and manual handling steps.

 

The technological foundation for this achievement comes from Berlin.

The Vertama GmbH, a Berlin-based company, developed the digital solution entirely self-funded and implemented it in close cooperation with the City of Kiel as its first municipal partner. This collaboration gave rise to what is now widely known in Germany as the “Kiel Model.”

Historic premiere on 28 November: Germany's first fully digital birth notification

At KRH – Klinikum Region Hannover, the birth notification was captured directly within the hospital information system, signed using a qualified electronic signature, and then transmitted machine-tomachine (M2M) to the responsible civil registry office. There, it was automatically imported into the digital system used to record births—without printing, scanning or any manual post-processing. For the first time, this enables a fully end-to-end digital process for a core civil-status procedure.

Berlin as the technological origin

While the organizational and procedural pilot phase was conducted jointly with the City of Kiel, the entire technical architecture, process design and software implementation were developed in Berlin. “This achievement demonstrates that true end-to-end digitalization of public-sector processes is possible today—and that Berlin plays a key role as an innovation hub,” Vertama states.

 

Legally compliant, interoperable and immediately scalable

The digital process is based on:

  • structured data capture directly within the hospital information system,
  • qualified electronic signature,
  • secure, fully digital M2M transmission to the civil registry office,
  • delivery via intermediaries in the German Administrative Services Directory (DVDV),
  • direct import into the civil registry’s birth-recording system.

The architecture is standards-based, interoperable and independent of local IT environments, enabling rapid adoption by municipalities across Germany.


Significant impact for hospitals and civil registry offices

Digitalization offers:

  • major reduction of manual data entry and verification work,
  • fewer errors thanks to structured, machine-readable data,
  • faster processing and issuance of certificates,
  • reduced administrative workload and fewer corrections or returns.

 

This is particularly relevant for cities with high birth rates and heavily burdened local administrations.


Next step: Digital death notification

Building on the same technical foundation, Vertama is currently developing the digital death notification, another core component of Germany’s civil-status system.

This solution is currently under development and expected to enter pilot operation soon.

 

About Vertama

Vertama GmbH is a Berlin-based technology company specializing in digital reporting services for hospitals and public authorities. Vertama’s solutions ensure fast, compliant and error-free fulfilment of legal reporting obligations. All products are developed self-funded, with a strong focus on real-world applicability, data security and seamless integration into existing workflows.

 

 

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