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10 million e-estonians – a technological, or a political project?
In spring of this year, Taavi Kotka, Deputy Secretary General – ICT at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications for Estonia, promised that by 2025 there will be 10 million e-estonians, and today the law enabling this was passed by the Estonian Parliament. For a country the size of Estonia with its 1,4 million inhabitants, it is a very ambitious plan. Is it a true goal of technology policy, or a political project?
The beautiful life of a digital citizen in Estonia
When I came to Estonia the first time in 2005, the digital identity card in Estonia was still in its infancy. Nevertheless nearly 10,000 citizens used the card to vote digitally in the municipal elections that October. Over the years, the take-up of the digital ID has increased quite considerably – even to such a high extent that I don’t know any other place where the use of digital identification, authentication and signing contracts digitally has a such a widespread adoption by the general public. Just a few (off-regular-working-hours) evenings ago I signed the household insurance policy digitally and sent the document by e-mail to my agent. She replied half an hour later and said everything was in proper order (on a Sunday night …).
This is what makes life – for a resident who considers him/herself a digital citizen – quite convenient. Similar to Estonia, there are other countries that are trying to do the same. My home country Austria began the efforts introducing a digital ID, the so-called Bürgerkarte (citizen card), around the same time as Estonia. To date, the adoption has been lagging behind. Only since the introduction of the Handysignatur (mobile ID) has the adoption started to increase and it is starting to be used more frequently. But no way near is it possible to do the same things as in Estonia. There is for example the lack of support by Austrian banks – there are only two banks that support the digital ID and anyway it is so complicated that hardly anyone uses it. Also, nobody in Austria would think of the idea to sign any kind of contract digitally and send it by e-mail.
Is there a real demand for Estonian e-residency?
Thus, the immediate difference between e-stonia and other countries is that the digital signature has reached everyday life, it has passed the critical mass of people that use it in Estonia. But what do to, if you want to interact with other countries or if a non-Estonian resident wants to use Estonian e-government services? Then he/she has been so far out of luck because of the requirement of residency as a precondition for the Estonian digital identity.
Not so in Austria – from the early beginnings, the Austrian e-government concept has foreseen the possibility that anyone who has an (e-government) interest in using Austrian e-government solutions could apply for a digital ID.
This is changing now also in Estonia. The move by the Estonian government to allow for e-residency, means that basically anyone that wishes to do so, can get an Estonian digital ID card. He/she only has to come (for now) to Estonia once, give his/her fingerprints (for a background check) and pay 50 EUR.
Since the opening of a show-of-interest list, a high four-digit number of people have shown their interest for becoming an e-resident. But why? Most of them, I believe, are early-adopters, wanting to know how the cool Estonian digital ID card works or how cool it feels to have one. What will they be able to do with it? They will be able to use it in Estonia, but elsewhere only a little.
This might be changing as well, and not only because of Estonian policies or development of the Estonian e-residency concept and services. The EU commission has passed the Electronic Identification and Trusted Services Directive (eIDAS), which should allow the use of national ID cards also in other countries. The Stork project, for example, has been working on making the various European ID cards interoperable – as a result also the Estonian RIK centre of registers and information systems already accepts Portuguese, Finnish, Belgian and Lithuanian digital ID cards.
So why offer the e-residency then, if at some point one will be able to use the digital ID card from one’s home country with the e-government services in the other European countries?
The logic is probably to export the Estonian experience and market the country, as has been the case for most Estonian e-related initiatives and policies.
What will the future tell?
The “e-residency” that is available in Austria for nearly 10 years has not been used much, while I don’t have any official numbers, I am sure it is in the low thousands, even if that.
The costs that are involved with introducing such a service – for example, developing new procedures, background checks, etc. – might outweigh – as is often the case with public services (and why these services are public services in the first place) – the actual benefits for the affected, unless there is a complete different business model in mind.
Rather than servicing a need, the Estonian e-residency has to be seen as a tactical and political move to export Estonian knowledge and expertise, to put ‘Estonia’ on the map for European-wide digital ID services, and/or to kick-start the growth of the Estonian economy (as has been also mentioned by Taavi Kotka).
Whether following these goals will actually attract 10 million people to sign up for this service in the next 11 years is to be doubted, but only time will tell. Yet, all these goals require a different policy rhetoric and logic than currently presumed by e-enthusiasts – from reinventing Estonian state and public administration to reinventing Estonian economic policy as well.
Prof. Robert Krimmer is a Professor of e-Governance at the Chair of Governance at the Ragnar Nurkse School of Innovation and Governance. This article was originally published in the Nurkse School Ideas Bank.
