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posted by takyon on Monday August 24 2015, @03:00PM   Printer-friendly
from the e-z dept.

In the shadow of the nearby United Nations, I approached the Estonian consulate this week ready to complete what's been an eight-month journey. I waited this entire time to visit the 6th floor, finalize some paperwork, and leave with a shiny blue box no bigger than a standard envelope. Soon after, it was official.

I was finally an Estonian e-resident, one of the first 10,000 worldwide.

This Northern European country, formerly occupied by the Soviet Union, has become a tech powerhouse in recent years. Its burgeoning startup scene is highlighted by Skype, Estonian citizens have their own digital ID cards (which power the country's online voting system), and the country is the home of the NATO Cooperative Cyber Defence Centre of Excellence. And a few months back in California, I heard Prime Minister Taavi Rõivas explain his homeland's latest ambition—e-residency cards that could extend some Estonian government services to non-residents like me.

"We have digital identity and digital signing that is equal by law for each and every Estonian citizen and each and every person that lives in Estonia," Rõivas said during a December 2014 event at Stanford University. "If you have a signature that is on your ID card, and you put it to your smart card reader combined with your PIN, and this is legally binding, and this is equal to your handwritten signature, you can do anything with that. We have used this for 10 years now, and we do believe that there are many things we can do."

Any Estonian e-residents care to comment on why this is worth doing?


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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @06:14PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday August 25 2015, @06:14PM (#227714)

    One might see it that way.
    That he brought it up at all makes one think that he believes that the notion has credence.
    It doesn't.
    The gains are too small and the risk is too large for Joe Average to even consider it.
    As I said, if it was that significant a thing, it would be in the courts bigtime and there would be actual names of actual offenders attached to the phenomenon.

    ...and when you do find cases of fraudulent voter registration, the names associated with that will reveal the mendacity of Faux News:
    There's Newt Gingrich [google.com] and Mitt Romney [google.com] and Ann Coulter [google.com] and Indiana's Republican Secretary of State Charlie White. [google.com]

    -- gewg_

  • (Score: 2) by etherscythe on Wednesday August 26 2015, @06:14PM

    by etherscythe (937) on Wednesday August 26 2015, @06:14PM (#228191) Journal

    It's the "Obama should go explain it to them" part that makes me think he is exaggerating for comedic effect.

    --
    "Fake News: anything reported outside of my own personally chosen echo chamber"
  • (Score: 2) by Nollij on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:12AM

    by Nollij (4559) on Thursday August 27 2015, @02:12AM (#228389)

    It's called Poe's Law [wikipedia.org].