📋 Tender Overview
The government has approved a decision to establish a list of categories of electronic communication and digital client devices intended for accessing information society services or media. The list is established by the revised Act on the Public Use of the Slovenian Language (ZJRS). This marks another decisive step towards the equal representation of the Slovenian language in the digital environment.With the amendments to the Act on the Public Use of Slovenian adopted last year, legal obligations regarding the use of Slovenian are expanding to the field of digital technologies. These play an increasingly important role in the lives of every individual and society as a whole. Many electronic devices are not yet adapted to smaller language groups, which also include Slovenian. Slovenian users are therefore often forced to use electronic devices in a foreign language. This brings a number of negative consequences, including lower social inclusion of people who do not understand foreign languages, and poorer consumer safety, as electronic devices can become dangerous to use (for example, cars) if instructions and warnings in a foreign language are not understandable to users in the Republic of Slovenia. The list of device categories therefore determines electronic communication and digital client devices that will have to have the option of selecting Slovenian, so that the functionality of the device will be equivalent to the functionality of the device in other supported languages. The list includes categories of devices that are today very important for monitoring the media, obtaining information, creating your own content, accessing electronic public administration services (health, taxes and other services) and for accessing most other information and entertainment that is spread via digital platforms (including smartphones and computers, connected cars and the like). The revised Act on the Public Use of the Slovenian Language was approved by the National Assembly last April. The amendment to the law was necessary because the old law, which was first adopted in 2004 and last amended in 2010, did not adequately regulate the protection of the Slovenian language in the digital environment. With the revised law, the Ministry of Culture has redefined the public use of the language, which also covers the digital environment. The new public use of the language also includes operating systems and user interfaces, which for most users represent an important or even the main language environment, in which Slovenian is not yet equally represented. Apple was among the first major manufacturers to respond to the new requirements and supported Slovenian in the iOS 18 mobile operating system last fall.
