Estonia is a pioneer in the digitalization of public services. It took the first steps towards online access back in the 1990s and has been opening up e-services one by one since the early 2000s. Now the country allows its population to use an electronic ID card and vote in national elections from home. Anyone is allowed to do business with Estonian digital citizenship.

Ukrinform spoke with Petra Holm, digital transformation advisor at e-Estonia. This organization contributed to the creation and development of all the processes described. Perta Holm says that 100% of public services are available to citizens online and reveals the philosophy behind this choice of the Estonians.

WE STARTED AS TRADITIONALLY CORRUPT STATE, AS EVERY POST-SOVIET COUNTRY

– The first digital service in Estonia appeared in 1996. Tell us more about the path your country has taken in digitalisation. How many services are available online?

– We started digitalizing as soon as we got our independence back as a national strategy. There was not much else we could have succeeded at, because there are few people and natural resources in Estonia.

We needed to find a way to build a lean state and try not to become as heavily bureaucratic as established democracies. In the 1990s, Estonia was too broke and focused on survival to pay attention to global trends.

However, our leaders were forward-thinking. Technologies were a way for us to build an efficient state. 

All of the state-provided services are digital by now. 100%. Any interaction of the citizen with the state has a digital option. Occasionally, there are municipal level services that are not fully digital, but there are not many of them. It depends on the municipality, whether it is large, has specialists, money, and expertise. For example, you have to write an email or come talk to a civil servant to get sports benefits for your kids or something like that. It is a minor thing.

Quality of life is the reason we built the digital state. We want people not to waste time, energy, brain cells, and nerves on interacting with it. Things should be automatic, efficient, and hopefully one day proactive. So, when you qualify for a service or a benefit, like you do not even need to apply for child benefits, for example. The state will simply give it to you. 

– Do you think you have managed to overcome the corruption with it with your digital transformation? 

– Absolutely! The services depend on the programmed code. The recipients do not have to be anything other than a citizen. In a corrupt state, you have to be special to get service or have money. In a non-corrupt or digital state, everything is transparent and automatic. Your resources are not part of the equation.

We started as a traditionally corrupt state because every post-Soviet country was like that. As Estonia was digitalizing, it rose up in the Corruption Perception Index to the 13th place globally. A lot of work still needs to be done. There are high-profile corruption cases in Estonia. We love watching how these people are put into jail and prosecuted on TV.

– Similar with Ukrainians.

– Yeah, there has been some really interesting news from Ukraine lately. We are really cheering. High-profile people – however powerful they are – are being questioned. If we have the guts to look into their actions, that is a good sign. 

In a truly corrupt society, you never ask questions. You get punished for it. Everyone knows that everyone is corrupt. That is the status quo, and no one questions it. Everybody is okay with it. 

As soon as the country asks questions, people do not feel comfortable being corrupt, and they cannot get away with it. 

It is a gradual process. Digitalization helps with that a lot because it creates transparency. In Estonia, we empower every citizen to track their data. We can see how our data is being used to protect our rights. The law says the data is ours. It is not a theoretical right for us. Estonia seems to be the only country here.

– Are online services also people to people with the residence permit or for example Ukrainian refugees?

– Yes, you could be a temporary resident, a permanent resident, or an e-resident, a legal refugee – the status a lot of the Ukrainian refugees got. So once you come here legally, you get an ID card. With it, you can enter the infrastructure.

EVERY TIME ESTONIA ANNOUNCED AID TO UKRAINE, ONSLAUGHT OF CYBER ATTACKS FROM RUSSIA STARTED

– The reforms in Ukraine face fierce opposition to the changes. Have you encountered attempts to undermine it in Estonia?

– We are reserved and rarely protest. The only times Estonians protested were when Russia organised the Bronze Night in 2007. To complement, Russia launched a major cyberattack against us. Estonia was the first country to be cyberattacked by another nation-state. That is believed to be the first act of cyber war. 

When it comes to the push back, you have to understand the mood back in the day. We only launched the infrastructure in the early 2000s, like the eID, the X-Road. Before that, people were trying to get by. From school, I just remember being poor and dreaming of leaving this Estonia. In 2004, after joining the EU, money flooded in. We used them for good things. Technology generally felt like a good thing. Everyone wanted to get a computer and go online. It felt natural. We wanted to ditch the Soviet past, change as quickly as possible, and raise Western values. We were told that technology is a Western value. So, people were not necessarily against it.

We had many different programs for children, adults, and elderly people to learn how to use technologies. The more you know, the more you can trust. So, no one protested. Some people did not take part in those courses, but they did not protest. If we talk about civil servants, they also were provided with training.

– Does only Russia attack you? Can you basically explain what are the consequences of a cyber attack? How many resources, money, does it take from you? Does it harm the equipment?

– I know that there are many attacks, mostly from Russia. A couple of years ago, every time Estonia would announce aid to Ukraine, there would be an onslaught of attacks from Russia. Ukraine is getting the most of it. You are the main target currently.

However, we are well-equipped to withstand most of these cyber threats. In 2007, we got the first opportunity to test our systems and realised what was missing. So, we have a layered approach to protecting our cyberspace. It is a part of general defence. 

When it comes to protecting critical infrastructure and cyberspace, Estonia has a clear plan in place regarding who is involved. It can be men who have served in the army, having trained as part of their military training, who then become ethical hackers or specialists from the private sector.

There are thousands of attacks that actually have an impact. Data very rarely leaks. If it does, it is usually from the private sector, unfortunately, because small companies in Estonia think they are too small to be hacked very often. 2/3 of cyber attacks in Estonia are actually scams, so we talk about cybersecurity on a daily basis.

– Do people of Estonia trust you at the end of the day?

– Yes, Estonians generally trust the government. It is a Scandinavian approach. We do not automatically expect the state is lying to us or want to trick us. Estonians can sense that the government is trying to do the right thing.

If a data leak from the government happens, it announces that to us, apologizes, and corrects it every single time. You may think the people will, as a result, trust the government less, but it is actually the other way around. You get trust by the drop, and you lose it in buckets.

WE PROVED THAT INTERNET VOTES HAVE NEVER BEEN COMPROMISED

– How does the system i-Voting work in Estonia?

– Estonians have been voting since 2005. We were pioneers when it came to digitalisation. It was rolled out before the digital identity and the X-Road. Not everything was working perfectly. Yet the state was looking for a way to challenge the world and prove that we can digitalize the ultimate service from the citizen to the state. 

20 years have passed. Estonia is the only country that still does it. No one else votes online.

It took us a while to get 50% of the votes cast online. We reached it in 2023. Then we had an election in October, and it dropped to like 46%, which is fine. It is an option.

It makes sense for Estonians because we do not have many embassies around the world, even though we are scattered around the world. Some are studying, some are travelling. We do not want people to miss out on an opportunity to cast a vote, which is important for our democracy. Or we do not want them to interrupt their life and make plans one day to go to a polling station. Maybe, they are on holiday, enjoying garden work, or they are at their country house. You just log in, cast a vote – it takes three minutes.

– Do you personally vote online? 

– All the time.

The online voting is open for 5-6 days. You can vote as many times as you like. Every vote you cast online, however many times, cancels the previous one. It basically makes it completely pointless to try to bribe people to cast a vote for you.

It makes all the logical sense if you trust that it is safe. There have been many investigations into it. We have proven time and time again that it is safe. I think we have proven that the internet votes have never been compromised. 

– E-health also works in Estonia. You also collect your citizens’ DNA. How much data have you collected, and to what practical results has it lead now up to today?

– The initiative is the Biobank. For 20 years, we have asked people to donate their DNA for research purposes. Unfortunately, not much useful stuff has come out of it when it comes to benefiting the people directly, but this is good for the research and for personalising services in the future. 

Only 15% of the Estonian population contributed to the Biobank – around 200,000 adults. Last year, donors got access to a special website, and some of the people were contracted directly, because they have a higher chance of developing certain diseases based on their DNA. There have been some practical outcomes, but they are not massive.

LATEST NEWS ABOUT DIIA SHOCKED ME

– Do you keep track on digitalisation in Ukraine? What do you in e-Estonia think about it?

– I follow the developments because sometimes they are really big. The latest news that really shocked me was about the discussions about doing the IPO. That was a really unusual approach.

I was told the app is comfortable to use, so I think we could learn from your approach to design. There are many things we are already learning when it comes to Ukraine’s digitalisation efforts, but we cannot copy everything. You operate under a different set of conditions outside of the EU and different constraints.

Ukraine is advancing very rapidly in certain areas, and that is great. It took us forever, and we are still not there to design a state app, because we were so early into the digitalization game. Estonians can use everything via their phone, but it is not an app. It is a web page. 

– We talked a lot about cybersecurity, but do you think about the resilience of your system, given the Ukrainian experience and dealing with the endless attacks on energy infrastructure?

– I personally cannot say about it. I know that people in charge of protecting the infrastructure and cyberspace in Estonia think about it. I am not a cybersecurity specialist. I just know there is a lot of exchange of ideas, practices, and technologies between Estonia and Ukraine when it comes to defending cyberspace.

You are the only country that is currently at war in Europe, and you have an entirely different innovation process and experience.

I hope that our cybersecurity specialists are very frequent visitors to Ukraine and all are learning from your experience.

– Do you view AI as an opportunity or a threat? May it be that someday AI will help hackers and cybersecurity?

– It is already being used by both. AI is a tool. You can use it for the greater good or for whatever. AI is already used to scam people and to launch cyber attacks. It can also be used to defend. It is always harder to defend.

AI is very much part of the strategy of Estonia. We have been using it for years. The only way to personalise services is to implement AI, because it is the only technology that can work with the necessary amount of data and especially for proactive services.

Ivan Kosiakin, Tallinn