All follow the Estonians: e-Estonia is leading the way to an online identity
“e-Estonia” is a term commonly used to describe Estonia’s emergence as one of the most advanced e-societies in the world – an incredible success story that grew out of a partnership between a forward-thinking government, a pro-active ICT sector and a switched-on, tech-savvy population” (source: e-Estonia.com).
The background story
Estonia is a European country where around 1.3 million people live. Since 1991 they became independent and since then, their digital journey has started. They are now one of the (if not) most progressive countries in the world with respect to eGovernment activities. They are an example to many other countries on this matter. The Estonians like to see themselves as a forward-thinking country. They are very focussed on the tech sector, with a lot of start-ups and big tech corporations being headquartered in their country. The population is one of the most tech-savvy countries in the world. These reasons led to the impressive development of this tiny country.
What is eGovernment?
The eGovernment online portal makes governmental services easily accessible for any Estonian. The eGovernment programme is able to manage their taxes, register their company and even vote online. The government wants their services to become transparent, safe, convenient, flexible, easier and a lot of other things that add to the quality of life in Estonia.
This portal connects every citizen to more than 3000 services online. As a result, 99% of the banking transactions are performed online, 94% of the population file their taxes online, they own their own medical records, they can sign contracts over the internet, they can purchase a house completely online in 1 day, they can register a new company in under 20 minutes and they can vote online.
The future
Estonia’s revolution will go full speed ahead. The revolution has had a huge influence on the economy of Estonia. One of the biggest challenges is the integration with the European Union. The most crucial part of this challenge is not the technology, but the people using it. It has to do with a change in attitude towards this. If you can change this, you can implement a system like eGovernment. However, it will take time
Security concerns
They have taken their online security seriously from the start, as this a vital part of the portal. With a digital ID card and mobile ID authentication must secure the safety of the online services. Besides this, every citizen can see who looked into their documents. This adds to transparency.
The government claims that their choice to make it online accessible saves each citizen more than two weeks in time each year! It raises the question why not every country is moving towards a system where their services are accessible online, but who knows where we are standing in 10 years…
Sources:
https://ec.europa.eu/digital-single-market/en/european-egovernment-action-plan-2011-2015
Dear Geert, thank you for your post! I had no idea Estonia was doing this, and I immediately got enthousiastic reading your post! What a great idea, and indeed it makes me wonder, why are not all countries doing this? I know that in the Netherlands you can access your government letters online (mijn.overheid.nl), register for university (studielink), tell your city that you moved (for example, the Rotterdam city portal), and request studiefinanciering (mijnduo). However, these are not yet integrated with another and a lot of things still happen offline. I hope in the future, the Dutch government will move to a system like Estonia, and hopefully other countries follow as well!
Very interesting article Geert! I think this system much more efficient then what we have now in the Netherlands. I was wondering, would you think it would be possible to intoduce this in the Netherlands on short term?