CODIFYING ACCESS TO THE INTRANET OF THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION, INTRACOMM

• Introduction
• What type of contents is available on IntraComm?
• Who can access what?
• How in practice?

Introduction

IntraComm is the Intranet for the European Commission and as such is one of its main internal communication tools. Since 2001, IntraComm, from being exclusively accessible to Commission staff, has opened up progressively to groups or categories of individuals having a legitimate need for access. These categories include, for example other EU institutions and bodies or retired staff.

This operation has been undertaken in the framework of the e-Commission project, with its associated advantages of:

• Independence of geographical location and distance,
   
• Reduced delays in communication with correspondents,
   
• Extensive document-archiving facilities,
   
• Information searchability,
   
• Savings in the publication and transmission of data,
   
• Increased co-operation between the EU Institutions on administrative and other matters,
   
• Enhanced and easier access to information for individuals with a legitimate need for access.

What type of contents is available on IntraComm?

The contents of IntraComm can be classified in three categories:

1. “freely available” items, which comprise the majority of the information stored in the intranet (e.g. administrative and legal rules, such as the Administrative Notices and the Staff Regulations). This information is accessible to all IntraComm users;
    
2. “core staff only” items, restricted to active staff and assimilated groups mentioned in point a) below. These items represent a minor part of the information available on IntraComm. Typically, they include services and contents which form part of the internal working space of the Commission as well as information purchased externally and covered by copyright. Decisions on access rights to these items are taken by the DG responsible for the content;
    
3. "owner protected" items, stored in areas of IntraComm that are reserved to individuals that have received — by means of the appropriate password — entry permission by the owner. For example, the use of the ECAS password, which is increasingly used at Commission level, also implies a limitation of access only to preauthorised users. Decisions on access rights to these items are taken by the DG responsible for the content;

For the purpose of this Administrative Notice, "full access" is the situation of someone who cumulate access to items represented in point 1) and 2) ("freely available" + "core staff only").

Who can access what? 

The Director-General for Personnel and Administration has decided

1. that the following groups of users shall have "full access" to IntraComm:
    
   • All staff of the European Commission in active employment. This also includes staff on maternity leave
      
   • Commission officials on secondment in the interest of the service or at their own request
      
   • Commission officials on parental leave or on family leave
      
2. that the following groups of users shall have access to IntraComm, limited to the items included in the “freely available” category:
    
   • Staff of the other EU Institutions and related bodies (only from their workplaces) ¹
      
   • EU Pension/Allowance Scheme beneficiaries. This group comprises all users who find themselves in one of the four situations listed below. These are covered by Annex VIII of the Staff Regulations, namely:
      
     • Retirement pension
        
     • Invalidity allowance or pension
        
     • Survivor's pension
        
     • Retirement in the interests of the service allowance
        
   • Former Commission officials entitled to "degagement" allowance ²
      
   • Commission officials on leave on personal grounds (CCP)
      
   • Commission officials on leave for military service

How in practice? 

The groups of users mentioned under letter a) above, have their IntraComm identifiers directly managed by the Human Resources unit of their DG of origin. This means that they have nothing to do to have access to IntraComm.
As regards the groups of users mentioned under letter b) above:

• Staff of the “other EU Institutions and related bodies” receive primary support from their own ICT organization. It should be noted that access by staff of the other EU Institutions/agencies/bodies is only possible through the TESTA II network (see footnote 1) and that access other than from their workplace is not technically supported by the Commission.
   
• EU pension /Allowance Scheme beneficiaries, Commission officials on leave on personal ground, at their own request or for military service receive primary support from the following services:

The services mentioned above will act as intermediaries for the above-mentioned groups and as mediators concerning the registration of these users vis-à-vis the services which need to take action to provide the access (DIGIT, HR units of each DG, PMO).

ADMIN/D/5 deals only with questions of principle concerning access by any of the groups mentioned above. In the event of difficulties in obtaining access rights, those concerned shall contact the sponsoring services mentioned above. These services will endeavour to ensure the timely implementation and/or maintenance of the access rights of the groups in question in order to maintain an efficient communication between the beneficiaries of access and the Commission.

For completeness, it is worth to recall that different groups of staff access IntraComm via different proxies. These are as follows: