e-Estonia refers to the digital society of

Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...

, which facilitates its citizens' and residents' interactions with the state through the use of ICT solutions. Estonian e-services created under this initiative include e-Tax Board, e-Business, e-Banking, e-Ticket, e-School, University via the internet, the

e-Governance Academy e-Governance Academy (eGA, Estonian: ''E-riigi Akadeemia Sihtasutus'') is a non-profit foundation that assists public sector institutions worldwide in digital transformation. The organization was founded in 2002, by a joint initiative of the Gov ...

, i-Voting, as well as the release of several mobile applications. According to the goals set in Estonia's Digital Agenda 2030, the country aims to assure that high-speed internet is available across the country, the digital government services are the best in the world, and the country's cyberspace is reliable and safe by 2030.

History

After the

Estonian Restoration of Independence Estonian Restoration of Independence, legally defined as the Restoration of the Republic of Estonia, was proclaimed on 20 August 1991. On that day at 23:02 local time, the Supreme Council of the Republic of Estonia, in agreement with the Eston ...

in 1991, the country was faced with the necessity to build a new technology infrastructure with very few resources, while trying to catch up with the West as quickly as possible. Most of the existing infrastructure was Soviet legacy; less than half of the Estonian population even had a phone line. The first Prime minister

Mart Laar Mart Laar (born 22 April 1960) is an Estonian politician and historian. He served as the Prime Minister of Estonia from 1992 to 1994 and from 1999 to 2002. Laar is credited with having helped bring about Estonia's rapid economic development dur ...

and his government saw this as an opportunity to build low-cost, cutting-edge systems based on accessibility and efficiency He pushed the country through a period of modernization, establishing the foundation needed to bring the country into the digital age. In 1992, Finland offered Estonia their old analogue telephone exchange for free, as they were replacing it with digital connections. Laar refused this donation and decided Estonia would build its ''own'' digital system. As a result, people went from having no phone connections to buying cell phones, making Estonia

leapfrog Leapfrog is a children's game in which players vault over each other's stooped backs. History Games of this sort have been called by this name since at least the late sixteenth century. In 1994, Estonia started drafting its first IT development strategy, the "Principles of Estonian Information Policy", which was approved by the Estonian parliament four years later. This strategy created permanent funding of 1% of GDP for IT, making developing IT solutions unaffected by political uncertainties. One of the main cornerstones for the Estonian digitalization success story was the

Tiigrihüpe Tiigrihüpe ( Estonian for ''Tiger Leap'') was a project undertaken by Republic of Estonia to heavily invest in development and expansion of computer and network infrastructure in Estonia, with a particular emphasis on education. The project w ...

( Estonian for ''Tiger Leap'') programme initiated in 1996 by the then Estonian Ambassador to the United States, later President of Estonia,

Toomas Hendrik Ilves Toomas Hendrik Ilves (; born 26 December 1953) is an Estonian politician who served as the fourth president of Estonia from 2006 until 2016. Ilves worked as a diplomat and journalist, and he was the leader of the Social Democratic Party in the ...

, and the then Minister of Education,

Jaak Aaviksoo Jaak Aaviksoo (born 11 January 1954) is an Estonian politician and physicist, a former rector of the University of Tartu and Tallinn University of Technology (TalTech). Aaviksoo has been the Estonian Minister of Defence and Minister of Educa ...

. The idea of this project was to heavily invest in the development and expansion of computer and network infrastructure in Estonia through public-private partnerships, with a particular emphasis on education. As a result, by 1997, 97% of Estonian schools had an internet connection. The next major developments in the Estonian digitalization journey were the establishment of the first e-banking services and e-cabinet for the government in 1996, the opportunity for Estonians to declare their taxes online through the e-tax authority since 2000, and most importantly, the creation of Estonian X-Road.

Technology

The technology underpinning Estonian digital society is the distributed data exchange layer for registers and information systems called

X-Road X-Road is a centrally managed distributed Data Exchange Layer (DXL) between information systems. Organizations can exchange information over the Internet using X-Road to ensure confidentiality, integrity and interoperability between data exchang ...

(X-Tee). The X-Road project draft was submitted and the data exchange was set up in 2001, however, the initial discussions started as early as 1998. The first actual steps were taken in 2000 when, on the initiative of the advisor to the Prime Minister,

Linnar Viik Linnar Viik (born 26 February 1965 in Tallinn) is an Estonian information technology scientist, entrepreneur and IT visionary. Currently he is a visiting lecturer at University of Tartu, Estonian Academy of Arts and Tallinn University, Partner ...

, the X-tee pilot project was initiated. The funding came from the budgets of the Ministry of Transport and Communications, Ministry of the Interior, and the Government Office, coordinated by the state information system department (RISO) of the Ministry of Economic Affairs. The main idea, in addition to providing a safe data exchange platform and avoid leaking sensitive personal was to create one central unit where Estonian citizens would be able to both receive and give information, government's officials could use just one central state database and entrepreneurs would have the possibility to use the information in state databases for the benefits of their business. Today, the X-Road has become the backbone of e-Estonia, allowing the nation's public and private sector information systems to link up and operate in harmony. 99% of public services are accessible online 24/7. There has been controversy around the actual use of blockchain technology in X-Road and e-Estonia, which appeared in news outlets and was later denied by the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions, which audited X-Road. Other parts of e-Estonia have been also analyzed with doubts about its claimed use of blockchain technology.

Services

In 2002, Estonia created a digital identification system, based on the mandatory ID card. the e-Identity system means that all Estonian nationals and residents, regardless of location, have a state-issued electronic identity, called eID which enables them to interact with the state and use all of its services. People use their eIDs to pay bills, vote online, sign contracts, shop, access their health information, and much more. In 2017, a Czech research team found a

vulnerability Vulnerability refers to "the quality or state of being exposed to the possibility of being attacked or harmed, either physically or emotionally." A window of vulnerability (WOV) is a time frame within which defensive measures are diminished, com ...

in the physical chips used in many of the eID cards to establish identity, leading to the cards being temporarily locked. According to the Estonian State Information System Authority, exploiting the vulnerability would not have been easy or inexpensive, and there were no known cases of successful exploitation of the ID card or similar chips. In fact, no such cases were known by the time Estonia revoked the affected certificates. In 2014, Estonia became the first country to offer electronic residency to people from outside the country, a step that the Estonian government terms as "moving towards the idea of a country without borders." The program, called e-Residency, is meant for anyone who wishes to become an e-resident of Estonia and access its diverse digital services, regardless of citizenship or location. Non-residents can apply to have a smart ID card issued to them by the state, providing the same access to Estonia's various electronic services that a physical resident would be given. Use of the card for authentication with these services requires a four-digit pin code. The card, in conjunction with a separate pin code, also allows e-residents to digitally sign documents over the internet, a practice that is legally binding anywhere in the EU. While e-residency provides access to these services, it does not grant physical residency, the right to enter the country, or the ability to use the smart ID card as physical identification or as a travel document. It does not imply any support from the Estonian government in obtaining electronic residence. It is also not a way to avoid paying taxes in the country of actual residence – instead, one becomes a taxpayer both in Estonia and in the country where one is a citizen and tax resident. In the field of healthcare, Estonian

paramedics A paramedic is a registered healthcare professional who works autonomously across a range of health and care settings and may specialise in clinical practice, as well as in education, leadership, and research. Not all ambulance personnel are p ...

have access to an e-ambulance app, which – via X-Road – allows medical personnel immediate access to patient medical records. The system is also used for telemedicine. Since 2010, e-prescription was established, nowadays 99% of medical prescriptions are handled online; routine refills can be issued without appointments. Since 2020, Proactive Child Care was introduced, meaning that parents of a newborn no longer need to apply for benefits. e-Estonia enabled

electronic voting Electronic voting (also known as e-voting) is voting that uses electronic means to either aid or take care of casting and counting ballots. Depending on the particular implementation, e-voting may use standalone ''electronic voting machines'' ( ...

via the i-voting app, which used an I.D.-card-based system to cast ballots remotely. In 2014, approximately one-third of all votes were cast using the app. Since 2000, Estonians have been able to declare taxes online. Now 98% of people declare their income electronically. In the year 2022, m-Parking was also established, which is a system that enables drivers to pay for city parking via mobile phone. In 2022, e-Cabinet meetings were introduced, which reduced government bureaucracy.

References

External links

BBC: Estonia's internet ‘Tiger Leap’

How it all began? From Tiger Leap to digital society

History

Technology

Services

See also

References

External links

Further reading