Siemens Business Services has announced today that it has secured a contract with the Office for National Statistics (ONS) to scan, digitize and index more than 250 million birth, marriage and death certificates from 1837 to the present day.

The three year project, called Digitisation of Vital Events ( DoVE ) is part of the strategy to modernize civil registration. The computerized record of all vital events will enable a more efficient service for people buying certificates. This project will deliver significant efficiencies in the production of certificates, moving from a labor intensive manual process to a streamlined automated process. The ONS received more than two million applications for certificates last year.


Carrie Armitage, Project Director from ONS said: "It is essential to create new solutions to save time and money and give better service to the public, particularly as there is a growing number of applications for certificates."



Christian Oecking, head of global outsourcing business at Siemens Business Services said: "Being part of a project with such a huge scope and historical value is very exciting. We were able to prove that Siemens Business Services has the capabilities to undertake this project with extremely high quality and security standards at every stage of this project."



The microfilm archive of the paper records dating back to 1837 is held at the ONS in Southport, Merseyside. The microfilm cassettes will be taken to the Siemens Document Scanning Centre in Beeston, Nottinghamshire. All 80,000 microfilms will be scanned and encrypted and the images transmitted securely to the Siemens Business Process Operation Centre in India for data capture. High targets for completeness, accuracy and quality must be met and this will be managed from the UK based Centre of Excellence co-located at the ONS in Southport. When the records meet the stringent quality standards the completed digitized records and images will then be returned to ONS. It is planned that all certificates will be digitized by 2008.



Siemens Business Services is an internationally leading IT service provider. This Siemens Group offers services all along the IT service chain from a single source - from consulting to systems integration, right through to the management of IT infrastructures. Thanks to comprehensive know-how and sector-specific expertise, the company provides measurable added value for its customers. With regard to outsourcing and IT maintenance, Siemens Business Services is among the top ten providers worldwide. Sales in fiscal year 2004 ( ending 30 September 2004 ) came to around EUR 4.7 billion, 76 percent of which was achieved outside the Siemens organization. The company currently has approx. 36,100 employees worldwide. Further information at http://www.siemens.com/sbs.


Information Number: SBS 020805.33e
Press Office Siemens Business Services
Jörn Roggenbuck
81730 Munich
Phone: +49-89 636-43734; Fax: -42162
E-mail: joern.roggenbuck@siemens.com

Published on: 2005-08-03