Estonia – the most digital country in the world?
Have you heard about e-Estonia or that Estonia is the most digitalized country in the world? In this article we investigate how comes this small country in eastern Europe is one of the leading nations regarding digitalisation.
When the re-building of an independent Estonia started in 1991, the Estonian policy makers decided to use the possibility of a “bureaucratic clean slate” to create an innovative and digital society. A decentralised system and a flexible infrastructure were created to enable digital public services available for everyone with the locally developed Electronic ID card. In the DESI (Digital Economy and Society Index, https://digital-strategy.ec.europa.eu/en/policies/desi-estonia) by the European Commission from 2022 we can read about almost 90 % of Internet users having access to e-Government-services that are widely developed in Estonia. The use and development of digital public services in Estonia are well above the EU average. For example, the electronic ID is used to declare tax online, apply for government aid and to vote in elections online.
However, there are still areas where the country wants to improve. To do this, there is a Digital Agenda including a vision and an action plan concerning the development of the Estonian economy, state and society with the help of digital technology
(read more in: https://www.mkm.ee/en/e-state-and-connectivity/digital-agenda-2030).
One of the priorities in the Digital Agenda 2030 is cyber security. This is not a new focus for the innovative country, but an area that requires much attention and work to ensure a safe and trustworthy digital environment for the Estonian people.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has further necessitated a sharpening of cyber security in the region. Estonia has also supported Ukraine in this area – both before and after the outbreak of the Russian invasion.
Estonia has experience of cyber-attacks linked to Russia from the time they were the target of the first cyber-attack against an entire country in 2007. The attack started as a disinformation campaign and then escalated to shutting down websites of Estonia’s government, banks and media outlets. This attack has not only led to more efficient technical solutions to improve the cyber security, but also to a great public initiative to educate all citizens about disinformation and media literacy. Misinformation and disinformation are essential problems on various social media platforms and on the Internet in general. During the Covid pandemic this became a global problem, spotlighted by the World Health Organization and the UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) for example. (Read more: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20220128-the-country-inoculating-against-disinformation, 2024-01-02)
When society becomes more digitalized it’s important to have strategies to protect our information and to make sure to preserve the information that we want to be able to access in the future. Control is an important aspect of both protection and preservation. With Arkiwera we want to contribute to you gaining control of your information on various kinds of social media platforms and websites.
Written by: Magdalena Sjödahl, Arkiwera
