Estonia's X-Road Project
Description
UCL IIPP:
"The Estonian e-government infrastructure and its success rest on two main pillars, both introduced in 2001, which essentially create digital access to state and digital citizens: the data infrastructure x-road and a compulsory national digital ID. X-road is an interoperability platform for existing decentralised databases and a data exchange layer that can be used by public and private sector actors. It is independent of platforms and architectures and provides secure interoperability for data exchanges and identification of trusted actors in digital service delivery. The digital ID makes it possible for citizens to be identified digitally and to use digital signatures. Together, x-road and the digital ID make it possible to digitally sign any contract, access essentially any public service, order prescriptions, file taxes, vote and so forth." (https://medium.com/iipp-blog/is-estonia-the-silicon-valley-of-digital-government-bf15adc8e1ea)
Status
1. 2019
UCL IIPP:
"More than 2,300 public and private services use x-road, and the digital signature has been used almost 350 million times by Estonia’s population of 1.3 million. The digital ID penetration is close to 100%; 30% of votes are cast digitally (in both local and national elections); almost all personal income tax declarations and medical prescriptions are done online, and most medical records held by hospital and family doctors are accessible online. The Estonian government claims that its digital infrastructure has led to annual savings of about 2% of GDP and more than 800 years in working time for the public and private sectors.
According to the EU’s Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI), in 2017 Estonia was the leading nation in Europe in digital public services, although in 2018 it dropped to second place. However, in most other e-government rankings Estonia‘s digital success is less evident. In DESI’s overall ranking, Estonia is in ninth position for 2018 and, according to the UN’s 2018 e-government survey, it is ranked only 16th globally. This cognitive dissonance — high praise and leadership position in global news outlets versus relatively middling rankings in overall digital transformation indexes (for more discussion, see Drechsler’s contribution in this new book) — reflects the nature of Estonia’s digital success: Estonia is ranked high for its digital public service infrastructure, which is universally available and mandatory, and an integral backbone of public service delivery. Estonia’s digital success, however, is not about other digital offerings such as digital democracy, citizen engagement or digitally transforming public services such as the welfare state." (https://medium.com/iipp-blog/is-estonia-the-silicon-valley-of-digital-government-bf15adc8e1ea)