Estonia has successfully digitized its society through establishing key digital infrastructure and policies. It has achieved high rates of internet usage (90% of the population) and computer ownership. Through its digital ID card system, residents can access over 2,375 e-services online, saving significant time and resources. The digital ID system is underpinned by a secure authentication process and distributed data exchange layer called X-Road. This digital ecosystem has supported Estonia's strong economic growth and global competitiveness in digital government services.

1. Estonia, the Digital Republic
Key elements to digitize a society
(and how we did it)
Toomas Hendrik Ilves

2. social indicators
1.3 million
population
194 585
smart-ID users
171 351
mobile-ID users
1 296 712
active ID-cards
90%
of population uses the
Internet regularly
86% broadband
coverage in households
88% of households
have computers

3. e-government
98,2%
ID-card penetration
31,7%
usage of internet voting
115
countries votes cast from
+31 000
e-residents
5033
business owned by
e-residents
2375
e-services available
476 621 816
digital signatures used
2%
GDP savings though
digital signature

4. 115
countries votes cast from
+31 000
e-residents
+500
e-services for citizens
+800 yr
working time saved by
the X-Road
476 621 816
digital signatures used
2%
GDP savings though
digital signature
52 000
organizations as indirect users
of X-Road services
ICT sector
3933
companies
3,564 B/€
20 333
avg. nr of employees
7% of GDP

5. the X-Road
ICT sector
3933
companies
3,564 B/€
turnover
45 000 €
value added per employee
20 333
avg. nr of employees
7% of GDP
ICT sector

6. our highest ratings
#1
OECD
tax competitiveness
#1
BARCLAYS 2016
Digital Development Index
#12
WORLD BANK
Global Ease of Doing
Business ranking
#1
GLOBAL IT REPORT
Mobile Network Coverage
#1
EUROPEAN COMMISSION
EU Digital Economy and
Society Index, Public Services
#2
FREEDOM HOUSE
Internet Freedom
#9
FREEDOM HOUSE
Index of Economic
Freedom
#1
WORLD
ECONOMIC FORUM
Entrepreneurship

7. My talk in 5 bullet points
• With the cost of computing decreasing at Moore’s law, money is no
longer an obstacle to digitization.
• It comes down to:
• Political Will, which begets:
• Policy, which begets:
• Legislation and legislative frameworks, which beget:
• Regulation

8. What you need for effective e-governance
in four bullet points
• A Strong, Secure, Identity with Legal efficacy with wide use to
guarantee:
• Digital Services that people and businesses, not just the Ministry of
Finance bureaucrats want
• A secure architecture for citizen and private sector services,
preferably with a distributed exchange layer
• You need to guarantee data integrity

9. The Estonian e-Governance System
•Built on existing standards
•Open source, non-proprietary software
•Strong Private sector participation and investment
•Infrastructure set up in 2001
•All new services rely on this infrastructure
•Thus easy to set up

10. How and why we got here… our cousins, the
Finns
• The last full year before WWII Estonia and Finland GDP per capita was
identical
• 1992, first full year of re-established Estonian independence Estonian
GDP per capita was 2 832 USD
• Finnish GDP per capita in 1992: 22,337.49 USD

11. They had the Nokia

12. Estonia had…

13. What to do?
• Do no reforms, i.e. follow Soviet path?
• Become Hong Kong?
• Radical economic reforms (privatization, property restitution,
elimination of tariffs, own fully-backed currency

14. Still looked bleak
• 50 years of shoddy or absent infrastructure it would take decades to
build
• Reforms take years, even decades to have an effect
• Poor population (but well educated)

15. 1993! Mosaic. The first Web Browser where the
world, rich and poor, competes on a level playing field

16. Step 1: get them young
Tigerleap: all schools online

17. Access for everyone

18. The fundamental issue:

19. A digital Identity needs
• To be secure and unique, i.e. belonging only to you
• Legal efficacy (Digital signature law)
• Use at least Two Factor Authentication
• Use End-to-End Encryption.
• Wide-spread if not mandatory distribution (but not mandatory use)

20. 2000 Digital Signature Law
• Digital Signature equivalent to physical signature
• Underlies all legal digital transactions — contracts, applications, money
transfers, prescriptions, tax returns, votes… etc.
• Allows Estonia a far more robust and powerful e-governance system than
in most places.

21. 2001 Rollout of Digital Identity card

24. End-to-End Encryption (E2EE)
Based on the chip in the ID or mobile SIM card

25. Two-factor authentication (2fa)

27. How to access services securely with a secure ID
• The Architecture must be secure
• Estonia chose a distributed data exchange layer. We call it the X-
Road.
• No Central Data Base
• You can only access data by verifying yourself with 2FA

28. Think of a modern ship with separate holds

29. X-Road: A distributed Data Exchange Layer
exchange
+ saving 840 years annually
+ over 900 connected organizations, databases
+ over 500 million transactions per year
+ exported to Finland, Azerbaijan, Kyrgyzstan, Namibia,
Faroe Islands
The busiest highway of e-Estonia – X-Road
from 2001.

36. A Revolution in bureaucracy:
Sequential vs Parallel processing

37. Which leads to… the Once Only rule
• You never have to add information the system already has
• No addresses, phone numbers or any other information already existing
• Your digital identity allows you to access anything you are entitled to
access.

38. Privacy vs. Integrity
• Privacy is to ensure others do not see or copy my data
• Integrity is to ensure your data is not changed by others

39. Some subsequent developments
• E-voting
• E-prescriptions
• E-residency
• Data embassies

41. From this…

42. To This…

44. Data Embassies

48. Gracías
Thank you