Issue link: https://maltatoday.uberflip.com/i/1513303
4 maltatoday | SUNDAY • 17 DECEMBER 2023 NEWS MATTHEW VELLA mvella@mediatoday.com.mt Electoral Office to scan all Malta buildings in Google-type mapping THE electoral office is to carry out a €900,000 geo-mapping of Malta's building units, in a Goog- le-type photographic survey using low-emission cars. The Electoral Office said it wants to consolidate its records of ad- dresses with spatially accurate points that also reflect the rapidly changing streetscapes of Malta. It also wants the winning tender- er for the prospective contract to only use electric vehicles, which will be then equipped with pho- tographic instruments, together with GPS and inertial measure- ment equipment. The Address Register Project is funded by Recovery and Resilience Plan Funds, of which 25% of that total allocation is aimed at digital objectives and the digitalisation of public administration and public services. The Address Register Project will create a database that also feeds into applications that will serve government-to-government areas, as well as government-to-business and customer sectors. "These e-services will be capital- ising on economies of scale and will contribute directly towards the attainment of Digital Malta, and the concept of one-govern- ment will be further enhanced," the Electoral Office said in its ten- der proposal. The Electoral Office already pro- vides the administrative machin- ery for the registration, transfer and cancellation of voters and or- ganisation of elections. "The need was felt for the Elec- toral Office to initiate a process of consolidation of current efforts in the acquisition of address points that are spatially accurate, reflect the in-situ changes as develop- ment occurs in a rapidly chang- ing streetscape, lineage drafting of processes, identifying hardware, software and content issues as well as ensuring retention and continu- ity, which had long been sought," the Office said. The Electoral Office's address management unit also carries outdoor numbering exercises and naming of streets in collaboration with the Street Naming Commit- tee. Both exercises require moni- toring and enforcing if necessary. The unit also verifies issues relat- ing to official locality boundaries and address points, carry out re- search on previous door number- ing and street-naming exercises and is responsible for the data- base in the government's Address Management System. The Address Register Project builds on previous projects that included MITTS's – later MI- TA – major effort to map all doors, a local government exercise to map street furniture and doors, the Water Services Corporations' detailed meter point, and the NSO's census to map enumera- tion locations. However, under the current sys- tem, these systems do not com- municate with each other, nor are they readily available under one digital pivot. The baseline scanning and map- ping exercise will set up a nation- wide database of all the built units upon which all other datasets, in- formation systems and models will be layered for inter-governmental and entity systems communica- tion, around a unique layer. "This will eliminate redundancy, duplication and multiplicity as the address data layer will feed all oth- er systems," the Electoral Office said. Address Register Project will be €900,000 building scanning and photographing exercise using electric vehicles, to feed into other government databases The Electoral Office has issued a tender for a street scanning exercise similar to what Google does with its street mapping vehicles Maltese buildings have undergone profound changes over the years and the Electoral Office wants to scan streets as part of its Address Register Project that will feed into other government applications