Welcome to the third episode of the series on e-Estonia. In this episode, I will discuss the model for making public services available in Estonia's digital state model. There are several references to the X-Tee topic in this post.

State portal eesti.ee

Estonian citizens/residents and businesses carry out their daily interactions through eesti.ee, which is a gateway to information about public administration procedures undertaken on various life or business occasions and an intermediary for access to services provided because of these procedures. The role of the gateway to the digital state consists of the following functionalities:
- intermediation of access to public services
- intermediation of access to personal information
- e-mail service for communication with public administration bodies
- datatracker tracking the processing of personal data by public administrations

- the above feature also allows the granting of permission to private sector entities to access information.

eesti.ee also contains general information about the Republic of Estonia, national holidays, contact information for state bodies, and other information of momentous proportions (at the moment, sections War in Ukraine and COVID-19 crisis) have been added to the site.

The multitude of the above functions provided by eesti.ee makes it contain more than 500 articles, 500 services and 2,500 contacts. These numbers make the site a comprehensive yet overwhelming gateway to the digital state.

Estonia's digital identity standard and methods for connecting to the IT state

The digital identity standard is the totality of IT solutions for verifying identity and linking personal data to an identity. As I mentioned earlier, the backbone of e-Estonia is an Estonian implantation of the X-Road protocol called X-Tee which lays out the path forward that I will describe here. An Estonian citizen/resident, in order to be able to invoke the service he or she wants, must connect to the IT system of the institution contracted to use the service in question and, if necessary, provide, using one of the devices acting as an ID card, an isikukood to the login service. As a substitute for isikukood, it is also possible to enter the EU eID number, which is the isikukood equivalent of the European Union's digital identity standard, the reasons for being able to use this alternative is a topic for a longer story, which I will try to describe in the chapter on e-Residency.

he process of applying for this isikukood involves going to https://tara.ria.ee/auth/init?login_challenge=random_alphanumeric_string and then selecting your preferred verification solution. To choose from, in addition to the solutions used in EU member states, there are:

ID-card - involves plugging in an Estonian ID card or e-resident card into a special reader that is connected to the computer hosting the ID-software, and then clicking the (...)Continue(...) button.

Mobile-ID - involves providing isikukood and the phone number on which a special SIM card has been installed (issued at the moment by the following telephone operators: Elisa Eesti AS, Telia Eesti AS and Tele2 Eesti AS). After pressing the (...)Continue(...) button, a verification message will be sent to the phone.

Smart-ID - It involves entering isikukood and clicking the (...)Continue(...) button. Once the application is approved, a verification message will be sent to phones with the Smart-ID application installed, which has the isikukood registered.

e-residency

The e-residency program consists of issuing foreigners (due to sanctions due to the war in Ukraine, citizens of Russia and Belarus were partially excluded from it.... https://learn.e-resident.gov.ee/hc/en-us/articles/4575271559441-Restrictions-on-Russia-and-Belarus) an electronic document, the e-Resident card, allowing them to use services registered (excluding, of course, services related to political rights with elections at the top) in the X-Tee system on an equal footing with Estonian citizens, mainly business citizens. I said mainly business because, the e-Resident Card is not a document having the functionality of a passport, i.e. a document allowing entry into the territory of the Republic of Estonia, which obviously undermines the sense of using the lion's share of civil services.

The process of becoming an e-resident:

1) You should prepare a set of documents consisting of:
- a copy of the identity card issued by the home country
- passport-style photo
- motivation statement
- a Visa or Mastercard credit card
2) Visit the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board's e-residency application page to register an account identified by the applicant's e-mail address... https://eresident.politsei.ee/
3) After logging into your account, submit the documents collected in 1)

4) Making the official fee.
At the same time, it should be noted that due to the war in Ukraine, entrepreneurs from that country are entitled to a refund of the fee....https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/eresidency-ukraine/
5) Making the appropriate location
6) Selecting the pre-received location, mainly the embassy of the Republic of Estonia, from the following list.... https://www.e-resident.gov.ee/pick-up-locations/

7) Verification by the Estonian Police and Border Guard Board's for potential abuse of e-residency status by the applicant.
8) Once a positive decision is made, the process of issuing the so-called e-residency kit follows, and it is then sent to the facility selected in item 5)
If necessary, the applicant can request that it be sent to another facility for collection. At the same time, the transfer time does not affect the six-month deadline for in-person pickup.
9) After receiving an e-mail about the availability of the e-residency kit, the prospective e-resident has six months to appear at the facility selected in item 5) to:
- present the ID card, a copy of which he or she sent for the registration process from point 3)
- hand over his fingerprints
- receive the so-called e-residency kit

The question of the identity standard of the European Union

European Union legislation stipulates that citizens of member states also have European Union citizenship. With EU citizenship comes, among other things, the prohibition of discrimination on the basis of nationality, which means the right to access public services. The situation, combined with the ability to use an EU eID (which unfortunately has not been implemented in all member states), creates a status analogous to that of an e-resident.

E-voting

The uniqueness of e-Estonia is also determined by a process called e-voting. This process allows voters to cast votes in elections or referendum-type plebiscites using devices capable of logging into the X-Tee system. This allows the electoral act to take place anywhere there is the ability to log into the X-Tee system and at any time during the voting period.
Other unique features of e-voting include the ability to change a vote already cast and the ability of the election system to consolidate and communicate real-time data on the electoral process to stakeholders.

The principle of proactive government

The principle states that the state is to relieve the citizen from the obligation to actively seek public services applicable to various life situations by proactively offering them. In practice, this involves offering a bundle of services related to a given life situation.

The situation as of October 2022 is as follows....
Service bundles were constructed for:
- child's birthday
- establishment of a business

Work continues on bundles related to:
- retirement... and six months before the event occurs
- construction of a property
- change of residence
- application for a driver's license and its replacement
- buying a car
- military service

Datatracker of personal data

As a general rule, there is a right to cases of use of personal data by public and private entities processing them by submitting an inquiry to individual institutions. However, there is a datatracker on eesti.ee that gives access to the processing history of data stored in node databases maintained by public institutions. These databases are:
- Digital prescription center
- Population register
- Social services and benefits registry
- Unemployment insurance database
- Medical specialist eBooking system
- Register of buildings
- Forest register
- Register of taxable persons

Starting with the above databases, it should be possible to cover all use cases of personal data that have not been classified because of an ongoing investigation or something like that.

Previous episodes of the e-Estonia series:

- e-Estonia: Introduction, or the backbone of the e-state

- e-Estonia: KSI Blockchain