Austrian Doctorates Disappeared?

There was a bit of a flurry in Austria the middle of February when it appeared that the doctoral titles the Austrians are so enamored of had been deleted from the official government registers. This was front page news:

https://twitter.com/joseflentsch/status/433850871693451264/photo/1

The article in Heute reports that people who had had their doctoral titles entered into the official database before 2007 needed to show their certificate at the registration office again if they wanted to keep using the title. According to the Standard, however, the ministry states that there was no data deleted. Instead, the doctoral title had been recorded in a free-text field and now they had a specific field for titles. Apparently, some communities made mistakes when transferring the data.

Austrians with doctoral titles can now begin breathing again.