The story of e Estonia

1. e-Estonia the coolest digital society
Roberto Piermarini
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roberto.piermarini@alice.it
https://www.linkedin.com/in/robertopiermarini/

2. Estonia
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Roberto Piermarini
population: 1.3 million
area: 45,339 kmq
currency: Euro
member of: EU, NATO, WTO,
OECD, DIGITAL 7
ICT sector: 7% of GDP
Finland
Russia
EST
Europe
Latvia
Lithuania
Sweden
Poland
• Estonia has never had much in the way of resources or a huge
internal market and it is a small country.
• When Estonia started building information society about two
decades ago, there was no digital data being collected about the
citizens.
• The general population did not have the internet or even devices
with which to use it. It took great courage to invest in IT solutions
and take the information technology route.
• Both, the public and private sector understood the need to build
an information society and integrate e-state solutions as they are
created.
Tuscany
population: 3.75milioni
area: 22.987 Kmq
90% of population uses Internet regularly
86 % broadband coverage in the house holds
88% of households have computers

3. Tiger's Leap Foundation
• The inspiring story of how Estonia became in 1996, with
the help of the Tiger Leap Foundation, a government-
backed technology investment body.
• Not long after its independence from the Soviet Union in
1991, the country decided that the online economy and
massive technological innovation was the way forward
for a tiny country with no natural resources to fall back
on.
• Through Tiger Leap, all Estonian schools were online by
the late 1990s, and large investments were made in
computer networking and infrastructure.
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• Five years later, ten private and public companies
formed a strong public-private partnership, creating the
Look@World Foundation .
• Supported by telecom and banking interests, the project
raised digital awareness and popularized the use of the
internet and ICT, particularly in education, science and
culture.
Toomas Hendrik Ilves
Roberto Piermarini

4. The Cyber Attacks of 2007
The initiative’s first project aimed to bridge the country’s
“digital divide” by providing free computer training to
102,697 participants, or 10% of the adult population.
And Estonian children are taught computer programming
starting at the age of seven.
In July 2016, 91.4% of Estonians used the internet a big
jump from 2000, when only 28.6% of the population was
connected.
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A series of cyber attacks began 27 April 2007 that
swamped websites of Estonian organizations, including
Estonian parliament, banks, ministries, newspapers and
broadcasters, amid the country's disagreement with
Russia about the relocation of the Bronze Soldier of
Tallinn,.
Some observers reckoned that the attack on Estonia was
of a sophistication not seen before.
The case is studied intensively by many countries and
military planners as, at the time it occurred, it may have
been the second-largest instance of state-sponsored
cyberwarfare, following Titan Rain.
After the cyberattacks Estonia combined network defence
with its common military doctrine.
Success of the process led to NATO creating the NATO
Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence in Tallinn.
This project has been nicknamed Tiger's Defence
Roberto Piermarini

5. Principles of Estonian e-governance
Decentralization
• There’s no central database and every stakeholder, whether a government department, ministry, or business, gets to
choose its own system.
Interconnectivity
• All system elements exchange data securely and work smoothly together.
Integrity
• All data exchanges, M2M communications, data at rest, and log les are, thanks to KSI blockchain technology, independent
and fully accountable.
Open platform
• Any institution may use the infrastructure and it works as an open source.
No legacy
• Continuous legal change and organic improvement of the technology and law.
Once-only
• Data is collected only once by an institution, eliminating duplicated data and bureaucracy.
Transparency
• Citizens have the right to see their personal information and check how it is used by the govern
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Roberto Piermarini

6. e-Estonia timeline: the first initiatives
• Mobile Parking
 is a convenient system that can be used in privately-owned
and public parking facilities in Estonia, allowing drivers to
pay for parking using their mobile phones.
• Population Register
 The state’s database for holding basic information about
each person living in Estonia
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• E Tax Board
 Today, you can pay your taxes in Estonia only in one click ;
all you need is 3-5 minutes for the tax filing process and it's
done!
 That is why each year, around 95% of all tax declarations in
Estonia are filed electronically.
 20% current tax rate
e-tax
board
m-parking
population
registry
x-road
digital
signature
id-card
e-school
id bus
ticket
e-land
registry
EHIS i-voting
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
Roberto Piermarini

7. e-Estonia timeline: e-School
• e-School
 To engage people in the digital society, the state has
cooperated with the private sector to deliver several
educational programs involving approximately every
citizen.
 For example, the Tiger’s Leap program, connected all
Estonian schools to the internet, established computer
classes and ensured that teachers and students were all ICT
competent as a consequence, e-study methods are used
daily in the schools.
 Two new programs are currently under way to modernize
the online networks of all schools, provide 1 Gbit/s internet
access in all classes and procure modern digital equipment
for all teachers.
 Estonia’s success in the digital revolution is reflected in the
fact that twice as many students pursue IT-careers in
Estonia versus the average in other OECD (Organization for
Economic Co-operation and Development) countries.
• No. 1 in the Digital Development Index (Barclays 2016)
e-tax
board
m-parking
population
registry
x-road
digital
signature
id-card
e-school
id bus
ticket
e-land
registry
EHIS i-voting
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
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Roberto Piermarini

8. e-Estonia timeline: e-School …
e-tax
board
m-parking
population
registry
x-road
digital
signature
id-card
e-school
id bus
ticket
e-land
registry
EHIS i-voting
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
• Several Estonian initiatives tackle the same issue helping to uncover hidden talent and shaping the IT workplace of the future.
To this end, there are opportunities for learning programming, robotics, and other modern technologies as early as pre-school.
• Training courses are organized for teachers and competitions for young people, digital learning resources are created and the
purchase of modern equipment is supported.
• Kindergartens have youth clubs, schools are integrating the teaching of digital skills into existing classes, and elective courses
and hobby groups are offered.
• As much as 70% of general schools in Estonia offer elective classes in IT and technology, and 68% of schools offer youth groups
that organize technology-based activities.
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Roberto Piermarini

9. e-Estonia timeline: ID Card & Digital Signatures
• Id-Card
 it is a mandatory national card with a chip that carries
embedded files, and using 2048-bit public key encryption, it
can function as definitive proof of ID in an electronic
environment. It provides digital access to all of Estonia’s
secure e-services,
 The user is identified by an ID-card or Mobile ID by entering
a short code. The certification centre gives an instant
confirmation of data accuracy..
 Estonians give annually nearly 50 million digital signatures,
which is more than the whole of the European Union
together Thanks to electronic ID, Estonia was the first to
 implement digital signature in 2002
 conduct i-Voting in 2005
 introduce an e-Residency programme in 2014
 set up a cross-border data exchange with Finland in 2017
 352 million digital signatures (1.03.2017)
 98% of Estonians have ID-card enabling use of their
electronic ID
e-tax
board
m-parking
population
registry
x-road
digital
signature
id-card
e-school
id bus
ticket
e-land
registry
EHIS i-voting
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
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Roberto Piermarini

10. e-Estonia timeline: X-Road
 99% of public services online with 24/7 access
 over 900 connected organizations, databases
 over 500 million transactions per year
 No system downtime since 2001
e-tax
board
m-parking
population
registry
x-road
digital
signature
id-card
e-school
id bus
ticket
e-land
registry
EHIS i-voting
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
The busiest highway of e-Estonia – X-Road from 2001.
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Roberto Piermarini

11. e-Estonia timeline: 2003-2004
• ID bus ticket
 On buses and trams, a passenger may dial a telephone
number to buy a ticket or a monthly pass.
 Because the ticket is tied to the passenger’s state issued ID
code, any ticket controller who checks the passenger’s ID
Card will instantly see that a ticket has been purchased.
• e-Land Registry
 A one-of-a-kind web application that contains information
on all property ownership and rights for properties and
land parcels.
• Estonian Education Information System
 A state database that brings together all information
related to education in Estonia.
e-tax
board
m-parking
population
registry
x-road
digital
signature
id-card
e-school
id bus
ticket
e-land
registry
EHIS i-voting
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
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Roberto Piermarini

12. e-Estonia timeline : I-Voting
• Estonia was the first nation in history to offer internet
voting in a nationwide election in 2005.
 Completely unrelated to the costly electronic voting
systems with their problematic machinery used in some
countries, the Estonian open-source voting solution is
simple and secure.
 The groundbreaking i-Voting system allows citizens to vote
at their convenience, no matter how far they are from a
polling station, since the ballot can be cast from any
internet-connected computer anywhere in the world.
• i-Voting has become a reality only thanks to the fact
that the majority of residents have a unique secure
digital identification provided by the state.
• Over 176,000 e-voters took part in the election of
Estonian parliament in 2015 (30,5% of all participants).-
e-tax
board
m-parking
population
registry
x-road
digital
signature
id-card
e-school
id bus
ticket
e-land
registry
EHIS i-voting
2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
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Roberto Piermarini

13. e-Estonia timeline: 2007
• Mobile-ID
 Allows people to use a mobile phone as a form of secure
digital ID. Like the ID-card, it can be used to access secure
e-services and digitally sign documents but has the added
advantage of not requiring a card reader.
• e-Police system
 Involves two main tools:a mobile workstation installed in
each patrol car, and a positioning system that shows
headquarters every officer’s location and status.
• Keyless Signature Infrastructure
 A blockchain technology designed in Estonia and used since
2012 to make sure networks, systems, and data, such as
national health, judicial, legislative, security, and
commercial code systems, are free of compromise, all while
retaining 100% data privacy
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Roberto Piermarini

14. e-health
system
e-prescriptions smart grid
ev quick
charging
network
x-road
europe
keyless
signature
infrastructure
e-police
system
mobile-id
2007 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013
e-Estonia timeline: Blockchain
 Since 2012, blockchain has been in operational use in
Estonia’s registries, such as national health, judicial,
legislative, security and commercial code systems, with
plans to extend its use to other spheres such as personal
medicine, cyber security and data embassies.
 Blockchain technology solves many of the problems that
data governance professionals have been trying to solve for
years. The technology developed by the estonians is also
being used by NATO, U.S. Department of Defence, as well
as European Union information systems to ensure cyber
security.
• When taking the first steps towards becoming an e-
state, Estonia understood that the risk of cyber attacks
will always be part of the information society – a risk
that must be taken seriously.
 Although blockchain has only become hot technology in
recent years, Estonia is leading the way in the blockchain
revolution- Estonian government has been testing the
technology already since 2008.
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Roberto Piermarini

15. e-Estonia timeline: 2008-2010
• Healthcare:
 Estonia’s healthcare system has been revolutionised by
innovative e-solutions.
 Patients and doctors, not to mention hospitals and the
government, benefit from convenient access and savings
that e-services deliver.
 97% of patients have countrywide-accessible digital records
 99% of prescriptions are digital
 500,000 queries by doctors and 300,000 queries by patients
every yea
• e-Prescription
 Each person in Estonia can use e-Prescription to get
medicine without paper prescriptions.
 The electronic ID-card system and blockchain technology
are used to ensure health data integrity and mitigate
internal threats to data.
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Roberto Piermarini

16. e-health
system
e-prescriptions smart grid
ev quick
charging
network
x-road
europe
keyless
signature
infrastructure
e-police
system
mobile-id
2007 2008 2010 2011 2012 2013
e-Estonia timeline: Health care systems
 Patients have access to their own and their children’s
records. By logging into the patient portal (ID-card/m-ID),
they can review past visits to the doctor, current
prescriptions, and receive general health advice.
 Today, over 95% of the data generated by hospitals and
doctors has been digitized, and blockchain technology is
used for assuring the integrity of stored electronic medical
records as well as system access logs.
 There are more than 20 million health documents in the e-
Health system
 There are more than 250 million events documented in the
e-Health system
 50% of referrals in Estonia are digital
 99% of prescriptions in Estonia are digital
 Each person in Estonia that has visited a doctor has his or
her own online e-Health story that can be tracked.
 The national health information system integrates data
from Estonia’s different healthcare providers, creating a
common record for each patient (since 2015, over 95% of
data generated by hospitals and doctors has been
digitized). This gives the doctors easy access to the patient’s
electronic records (test results, X-ray images etc.).
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Roberto Piermarini

17. e-Estonia timeline: 2011-2013
• Smart Grid
 A digitally enabled electrical grid that gathers, distributes, and
acts upon information regarding the behaviour of all
participants (suppliers and consumers) in order to improve the
eff•iciency, importance, reliability, economics, and sustainability
of electricity services.
• EV quick charging network
 The charging infrastructure project created an Estonian
network of quick chargers. Quick chargers for electric cars
blanket Estonia today and ensure freedom of movement for
drivers of electric cars.
• X-Road Europe
 X-Road Europe is a secure and standardised data exchange
environment for information systems.
 It can be used by public as well as private sector
organisations to access public services in the Euopean
Union.
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Roberto Piermarini

18. e-residency
data
embassy
e-reciept
data
embassy stage
2
opening a bank
account online
reporting
3.0
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
e-Estonia timeline: 2014
• Data Embassy
 The Data Embassy is an extension in the cloud of the
Estonian government, which means the state owns server
resources outside its territorial boundaries. This is an
innovative concept for handling state information, since
states usually store their information within their physical
boundaries. Data Embassy resources are under Estonian
statecontrol, secured against cyberattacks
 Estonia’s first Data Embassy in Luxembourg is operational
by the end of 2017.
• e-Residency
 A transnational digital identity for which anyone in the world may
apply allows the user to run a trusted location-independent EU
business online with all the tools needed to conduct business
globally.E-residents have access to the EU business environment
and can use public e-services through their digital identity.
 The primary reason why e-residents join this community is to run a
trusted location-independent EU business online with all the tools
needed to conduct business globally.
 With e-Residency, you can establish the company within a day,
apply for a digital business banking account and credit card, conduct
e-banking, access online payment providers (like Paypal, Braintree,
etc), digitally sign documents and contracts, and declare taxes - all
online from anywhere in the world.
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Roberto Piermarini

19. e-residency
data
embassy
e-reciept
data
embassy stage
2
opening a bank
account online
reporting
3.0
2014 2015 2016 2017 2018
e-Estonia timeline: 2015-2018
• E Receipt
 A portal that enables end users to manage their receipts, as
well as documents related to those, such as letters of
guarantee and product manuals, in a single, convenient
web environment.
• Opening a bank account online
 Estonian law was amended to allow e-residents to open
business bank accounts entirely online.
• Reporting 3.0
 The goal of Reporting 3.0 is to reduce entrepreneurs’
burden of obligatory data submission to state institutions.
 A new e-Tax and Customs Board portal will be completed in
2020, where the information exchange between companies
and the tax authority will be automatic and require only
the granting of access to data.
 This will save time and money, allowing companies to focus
on growth and productivity.
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Roberto Piermarini

20. An ambitious future
Healthcare 4.0
 Healthcare 4.0 is Estonia’s solution for the future.
First,thanks to personalised medicine and genome-based
analysis, people will become more aware of the factors
infl…uencing their health, and individuals will take more
responsibility for managing their own health.
 Second, patients will be able to access information
wherever they happen to be at a time of their choosing,
enabled by point-of-care devices equipment provided by
the state that patients may use themselves.
 Finally, Estonia will provide global health accounts and
introduce the benefits of medical procedures based on
articial intelligence.
Digital transformation in education
 Estonia’s educational digital revolution implements
modern digital technology more e.iciently and e.ectively in
learning and teaching, improving the digital skills of the
entire nation. One example: by 2020 all study materials in
Estonia will be digitized and available through an e-
schoolbag.
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Industry 4.0
 Introduction of Industry 4.0-type solutions could impact
everything from how quality is monitored to how much
effort goes into supply chain management. Several players
in Estonia’s ICT sector focus on Industry 4.0 solutions
development.
 At the centre of their strategy is a concept called Real-Time
Factory which, as the name suggests, allows managers to
track key performance indicators in real time, showing
where improvements can be made and allowing the entire
factory to operate as one integrated system.
 Tallinn-based SimFactory, for example, specializes in
helping electronics manufacturers adopt the Real-Time
Factory approach,giving them the kind of data-driven
production that can streamline every aspect of their
operations.
Roberto Piermarini

21. Real-Time Economy
• The-Real Time Economy (RTE) is an environment where …financial and administrative transactions connecting citizens,
business and public-sector entities are in structured standardized digital form. These transactions are increasingly
generated automatically and completed in real time without store and forward processes.
• Digital services should be designed so that they are easy to use and secure for the EU citizen (also for the handicapped
and those who do not use the internet).
• Incentives should be provided for the migration from paper, e-mail, and manual versions, and data connected from all
relevant sources.
• For example, solutions like real-time payments, e-ID services, real-time e-Invoicing, and e-Receipts, automated and
realtime accounting and VAT-reporting, automated credit and investment risk evaluation and processing, can hugely
benefi…t the digital single market through direct cost savings
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Roberto Piermarini

22. estonishing future
©TaanielMalleus
+zero-bureaucracy: invisible services
+cross-border digital governance
+real-time economy
+e-residency
Roberto Piermarini
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