Introduction
According to article 4 of the Federal Statistics Act (FStatA), the institutions of federal statistics must limit the administrative burden on data suppliers (individuals, enterprises and authorities).
To this end, since 2007 the FSO has implemented a strategy to use wherever possible, administrative data that already exists within the public administration instead of conducting surveys (on paper, online or by telephone).
Statistical use
From a statistical point of view, the aims are to have three basic universes on persons, buildings and enterprises that are exhaustive, up-to-date and harmonised, allowing samples to be drawn but also serving as reference data for official statistical production.
Reference data
The common management of reference data is a central element to support the digital transformation of authorities. It relieves citizens and businesses of the burden of communicating their data to the administration more than once ("once only" principle). The FSO applies this concept in three areas: enterprise, persons and buildings.