A system and a method are disclosed for a data processing apparatus (200) is described which comprises a plurality of application programs (206, 210) configured to utilize an availability status of a user; and a presence engine (208). The presence engine (208) is configured to receive data representative of the availability status of the user and generate one or more representations of the received availability status suitable for one or more of the plurality of application programs (206, 210). The one or more representations of the received availability status are made available to the corresponding one or more of the plurality of application programs (206, 210).