China can learn much from the tiny Baltic country of 1.3 million people, which has been a pioneer in creating a digital government
Estonia is a tiny European Union country in northeast Europe, just next to Finland, Sweden, Latvia and Russia.
So we can say – jokingly – that Estonia and China are almost neighbors, since there is only one country in between: Russia. Their populations are far apart, however: China has 1.4 billion people, while Estonia has 1.3 million.
So what makes tiny Estonia notable to a country 1,000 times its size? The answer is digital. Since 2000, Estonia has been a frontrunner of digital government, offering almost all of its services to its citizens this way. To facilitate this immense change from paper to digital, it gave a digital identity to all Estonian residents and a digital signature – the legal equivalent of a paper or plastic document and a handwritten signature.
A country that only uses paper documents is similar to a cash-only society, where you need to physically meet each other to trade. In the era of Alibaba and all sorts of electronic payments enabling cross-border e-commerce, this seems like a different time period. Isn’t it weird that when it comes to identity and signatures, we still tend to use the same old-school methods that we used ages ago? Of course, we know how easy it is to fake an ID or signature with modern technology.
Estonia’s solution to identity and signature issues is simple and safe. It is essentially a two-way authentication built on a chip (either on your plastic ID or on the SIM card inside your phone) and a pin that only you should know. Together, these create a unique stamp on digital files. The method uses elliptic-curve cryptography, which makes it much safer than any handwritten signature could ever be. Think of it as a very safe username and password combination that has been authorized by the government. It is both official and safe.
But why is all of this important? There are several big benefits.
From a citizen’s perspective, it is so much easier and faster to use services provided by the government. Digital health records and an e-prescription, declaring your taxes, changing your address or applying for a social subsidy are just some of the many services offered. In the past, Estonians had to go to government buildings and sometimes stand in line to get those services. Not anymore. All they need is an internet connection.
There are benefits for the government, too. First, offering the services is much quicker and more effective. Servers do the work faster than people manually entering the information. Second, it is easier and cheaper to build new services like an information system than building physical premises. And third, it makes everything function seamlessly. The many parts of the government do not need to ask for information that they already have: If they have a legal right to ask for information, they can look directly in their own database.
For example, if someone enters a new home address into the population register, he or she does not need to change it at the tax system as well, because they have both the legal right and technological means to ask for the information directly from the other register. This ensures that the information is more accurate, while making cooperation between state agencies seamless.
The widespread use of smartphones and tablets has led to a sharp fall in the digital divides in both age and geography. This means there is more demand for digital services – and there are many examples where the private sector has already met this demand. Now it is the government’s turn.
Estonia is a fine example of how digital government works for its citizens and the government itself. It helps to raise the quality of public services while reducing the cost at the same time.
Estonia really does use digital public services in all fields of government, including secure voting over the internet. This has given Estonian citizens living abroad the opportunity to vote even when they are far from polling stations. It is no longer a question of whether the services of the future will be digital. The question is when and where?
If digitalizing government services can offer tremendous savings in time and money in a small country, imagine how big the effect would be in China. It is certainly worth trying. I am glad to see that China has taken a lot of interest in building digital services for its citizens. It is obvious that the time is near when these services will play a big role in people’s everyday lives. When I last officially visited China two years ago, we talked about plans to develop e-government globally, so that in this way a document signed digitally anywhere in Europe would be recognized and easily used everywhere in Asia and on other continents. It is all about bringing the world closer.
The author is a member of Estonia’s Parliament and vice-chairman of the Finance Committee, and the country’s former prime minister. The views do not necessarily reflect those of China Daily.
(China Daily European Weekly 11/23/2018 page12)