10 ms·

Become Estonia’s e-resident

447 points by jkaljundi 12y ago

xmpir 12y ago
What exactly can one do with this digital identity?
- turnip1979 12y ago
  http://e-estonia.com/e-residents/e-residency/ http://e-estonia.com/e-residents/e-residency/
- Flavius 12y ago
  "get secure access to world-leading digital services" - Which basically means... absolutely nothing?
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  Some background information here: http://e-estonia.com/taavi-kotka-promises-10-million-e-estonians-2025/ http://e-estonia.com/taavi-kotka-promises-10-million-e-eston... Although the first stages will be more towards foreigners who conduct any business in Estonia, the next stages should allow appearance of new business models and internationally operated activities headquartered and registered in Estonia.
  - toomuchtodo 12y ago
    The Delaware of the world.
    - pdabbadabba 12y ago
      This actually points out a huge challenge for Estonia. As well as the tax advantages, another (and perhaps the primary) reason businesses incorporate in Delaware is their extremely well developed (and business friendly) body of corporate law (the stuff that governs the relationship between shareholders and the corporation, duties of a board of directors, that sort of thing) and a judiciary that is highly efficient in resolving internal corporate disputes. If you study corporations in any law school in the U.S., they will teach you Delaware law, regardless of what state you are actually in. I would love to see Estonia take on this challenge as well, but it will take a long time and concerted effort.
- _delirium 12y ago
  It's an ID/credential system that government and financial services will be using. So you'll be able to use the ID/credentials to log in and interact with Estonian entities that use it, like banks, tax authority, corporate registry, etc. Vaguely like an OpenID identity, but run by the Estonian government, and with two-factor authentication. It doesn't in itself give you any specific rights, as far as I can tell ("e-residency" is a bit of a marketing term). It just makes it easier to do things that foreigners are theoretically allowed to do, but which aren't currently very easy to do remotely. For example it's already legal for a foreigner to register a company in Estonia, but it's a bit of a hassle if you aren't an Estonian resident; this is supposed to make it easier, because you'll be electronically "in the system" with a proper ID number and login, making it easier for agencies and financial institutions to know how to deal with you. Especially since it's combined with a move towards self-service online portals for government services, so you should be able to log in with this ID and do a lot of things over the internet, instead of visiting civil-service offices. Here (Denmark) all that is also theoretically true—anyone with legitimate business in Denmark can get an ID, and once you have one you can do things like register a company entirely online, self-service, as well as interact with banks and anyone else who implements the "NemID". But in practice the authorities are very suspicious of anyone not living in Denmark trying to get into the system, so almost the only non-residents who do so are Swedes and Germans who either commute cross-border or have frequent business in Denmark.
  - jkaljundi 12y ago
    Actually many private entities use it as well. It's an authentication layer anyone can easily implement. Same for digital signatures.
tvanantwerp 12y ago
"To apply for one, you need to make visit a Police and Border Guard office in Estonia – there you need to submit an application and provide biometrical data (your facial image and fingerprints) for background check."
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  How this is supposed to work in the future - hopefully soon - is for you to be able to authenticate yourself in any friendly embassy or consulate. The first issuance must be with a strong proof of identity.
- spindritf 12y ago
  "We are working to add capacity to our embassies to process e-residency applications and issue cards abroad by the end of 2015 – so that you would not necessarily need to travel to Estonia to join us as an e-resident." From the leaflet [PDF] http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-Estonias-e-resident-leaflet_sept2014.pdf http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-Eston...
- anemic 12y ago
  are the facial image and fingerprints only used for background check, are they stored (and for how long) and are they shared with different entities, such as police or foreign governments?
  - daveloyall 12y ago
    Background check? Wouldn't this kind of ID be granted to anyone, so long as they are who they say they are, so long as their identity is vetted. I think selectively doling out benefits or rights is the job of a separate system. (And if everyone has one of these IDs, the design of the second system could be simpler than it might be otherwise. I think.)
  - irve 12y ago
    they store it in citizen database. as of now they do not share the fingerprints with our regular police. the face they probably get. I think that our local spy people have access to them (there was a theory about them managing our offshore database backups and therefore never asking for anything); if and how they share it is not disclosed. foreign governments might get access through travel information agreements (biometric passports were a requirement for free travel to US) but I am not certain about those details.
ikawe 12y ago
"The one-time state fee for the card is 50 euros, other fees will depend on service providers – public digital services will be offered mostly free-of-charge, just like to ‘real’ residents."
daveloyall 12y ago
For some time, I have daydreamed of various cool scenarios that would only be possible with a government-issued digital ID. But in my daydreams, I've never considered a third-party government issuer. I don't see value in this beyond the value that I see in a corporate-issued digital ID, and that's hardly more valuable than a self-issued ID. Obviously, Estonia has considered some angle which I have not. You can become an e-Estonian! They should probably change that to e-Stonian or something so that it's pronounced "eastonian". :) The "eee-eh" is awkward to pronounce.
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  Which scenarios have you thought of? A start would be to do anything an Estonian can do today online in almost real time. Founding a company online: 5 minutes and you're in business. Very simple tax and other legislation, so very simple reporting online - and getting tax refunds if needed in a few days. But this should not be limited to existing legacy services we use. Think of what you could do anything online with an absolute cryptographically strong vetted proof, that it's you, valid across the world? That's very different from a corporate ID which has no power internationally.
  - daveloyall 12y ago
    * Will and testament * Voting * Facebook (or whatever) * Spam * Banking * Contracts * Jury duty (Don't think boring.. think sci-fi!) * Taxes * Whistleblowing * Bar tabs * Power of Attorney (This one has new meaning in this context. It's a technical thing, a provable act of delegation.) * Police reports Basically the same use cases as PKI, but if it were government issued, the common person would know what it means. A conversation about a fender bender might include "Then, he drove off without e-signing the standard insurance form!". I dunno. Like I said, daydreaming.
    - jkaljundi 12y ago
      Seems pretty practical and doable for me. Probably more than half of these will be available to you via the Estonian e-residency. The government and ministry under which this is is pretty open to ideas that need a change of legislation to make the e-services available and happen. So keep those ideas coming. The thing about Estonian e-services has always been that while many other countries say it's not doable, Estonia just does it. Possible in a lean country of smart people.
lifeisstillgood 12y ago
Two things leap out - who makes the smart card? What is the model? - wow - that's just like Neal Stephenson and joining Tribes based not on location but membership. But I can't see myself going to Estonia just to pick one up ... I'll wait till the embassy in London does it :-)
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  It's made by Trüb in Switzerland, the leading player in Europe in issuing national id cards: http://www.trueb.ch/en/identity-card/secure-citizens http://www.trueb.ch/en/identity-card/secure-citizens Here are the Estonian specs: http://www.id.ee/index.php?id=35772 http://www.id.ee/index.php?id=35772
- asstonian 12y ago
  EstEID specification - covers all ID-card application versions issued in Estonia: http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-App-v3_5-20140327.pdf http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-App-v3_5-2014032... The Estonian ID-card and Digital Signature Concept: http://www.id.ee/public/The_Estonian_ID_Card_and_Digital_Signature_Concept.pdf http://www.id.ee/public/The_Estonian_ID_Card_and_Digital_Sig...
- jp555 12y ago
  Ah yes the Phyles of Diamond age. But this e-residency is still within the confines of a nation-state, whereas Stephenson's Phyles/Tribes replace the nation-state. I can see Bitcoin - or its decedents - easily being used for Phyle "ID-card" infrastructure; no nation-state required.
ikawe 12y ago
I was in Estonia two days ago. I just passed through on a whim as part of a European bicycle tour. I am embarrassed to admit, I knew very little about the country before being there. I was only there a week, so my impressions are addmittedly naive, but very positive. There was a lot of technology forward thinking - online voting, constitutional right to internet access, co-working spaces catering to young entrepreneurs. So quite hight tech on the one hand, and on the other hand, there is a deep respect for and serious comprehension of nature. The country is 50% forest! And my experience with Estonian camp sites was that they were free, ancient, and beautiful. I felt like I was camping in a sacred grove (I probably was). Man, wish I had stayed longer. Anyone doing any cool projects there?
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  Re projects, here's a list of some of the Estonian startups: http://hub.garage48.org/estonian-startups http://hub.garage48.org/estonian-startups
- sudowhodoido 12y ago
  I see a lot of that across Europe. I've been dying to do a road trip out that way (from the UK) but it's difficult with three children. Everyone I've met and spoken to out there has been through some serious shit right up until the late 1990s from wars to genocides. They really are forward thinking because looking back hurts badly. It might sound cheesy but I have a lot of hope for Europe and most of it comes from the East. At the same time I'm disgusted at how the media and general population treats our fellow Europeans.
  - vidarh 12y ago
    > Everyone I've met and spoken to out there has been through some serious shit right up until the late 1990s from wars to genocides. "Out there"? I'm going to presume that the wars and genocide you're talking about was the former Yugoslavia, as not many places fit the bill unless you go looking much further away, in which case Estonia is almost as far from there as it is from the UK (driving distance can go either way depending on route). And still 1700km from Estonia to Donetsk, Ukraine if you want to include that conflict...
duckingtest 12y ago
There's nothing particularly Estonian to this - you can buy European digital identity in all EU countries (except Great Britain and Ireland, last I checked). All documents signed by your key are legally as valid as those signed by your hand. Sadly, it's not used much outside of government services.
- throwaway_yy2Di 12y ago
  Isn't that for citizens and residents of those EU states? This "e-residency" is for anyone in the world: there's 241 nations in the "Your Country" menu. (which by the way is a few years outdated: e.g. there's no South Sudan, and Libya is still the "Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", which was Qaddafi's name for it).
  - duckingtest 12y ago
    No, it's the exact same thing (although it appears to be the cheapest in Estonia), it's the exact same EU-wide law. The only difference is they market it for foreigners.
tikums 12y ago
And then be sure to read this: https://estoniaevoting.org/ https://estoniaevoting.org/ E-future cannot be built if we don't fix serious issues with software engineering. There is no guarantee of security. There is no assurance. We basically don't know how to build secure systems yet. As daily events show (from #fappening, #shellshock to Snowden's revelations), this is one of those "hard", unresolved problems...and not just from algorithmic (non-repudiation) perspective, but also from a practical engineering perspective (we are still dealing with buffer overflows). “The software security industry today is at about the same stage as the auto industry was in 1930" ... "it looks fast, goes nice but in an accident you die.” ... "The major shortfall is absence of assurance (or safety) mechanisms in software. If my car crashed as often as my computer does, I would be dead by now.” -- Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the NSA, We Need Assurance http://www.research.att.com/talks_and_events/2008_distinguis.. http://www.research.att.com/talks_and_events/2008_distinguis....
- asstonian 12y ago
  sigh, not this again. only found this not-very-good response in english to those "experts": http://www.vvk.ee/valimiste-korraldamine/vvk-uudised/vabariigi-valimiskomisjoni-vastulause-the-guardianis-ilmunud-artiklile/ http://www.vvk.ee/valimiste-korraldamine/vvk-uudised/vabarii... but saying "terribly insecure" is more than wrong. yeah, thare are many procedural things which could be better, but technologically estonian e-voting is secure. only serious threat is propaganda.
  - tikums 12y ago
    Are you saying it's resistant to penetration by Russian security services? Sorry if I don't take your word for it. They have just successfully hacked into several of the top financial institutions in the world: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2691902/security0/russian-hackers-reportedly-behind-jp-morgan-data-breach-this-summer.html http://www.networkworld.com/article/2691902/security0/russia... They got away with customer data and who-knows-what-else. I'm pretty sure JP Morgan has a bigger cyber-security budged than the whole state of Estonia, many times over. And then check the laundry list of these: http://cybercampaigns.net/ http://cybercampaigns.net/ The basic truth is: we still don't quite know how to design digital information systems that can resist attacks from very persistent or nation state level actors. Even if these are air-gaped (as demonstrated by Stuxnet).
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
lifeisstillgood 12y ago
Two things leap out - who makes the smart card? What is the model? - wow - that's just like Neal Stephenson and joining Tribes based not on location but membership. But I can't see myself going to Estonia just to pick one up ... I'll wait till the embassy in London does it :-)
plainOldText 12y ago
I believe this has huge implications for someone who would want to operate a company from a business friendly country, as opposed to say a country where the individual is located physically but is otherwise corrupt or war ridden. My understanding is that this status allows you to form companies, open bank accounts and sign binding documents just like someone living in Estonia. And that is pretty impressive. Add cryptocurrencies into play, and whole new world of companies is now suddenly possible.
- boh 12y ago
  "Money laundering has never been so easy! Thanks E-stonia!"
  - cpach 12y ago
    So money laundering is the only reason for using cryptocurrencies? And who says cryptocurrencies can’t be regulated?
    - boh 12y ago
      Shell companies are one of the greatest instruments for graft ever devised. I'm not a fan of them, and they get easier to make with every passing year. I don't have an opinion on cryptocurrencies. I'm sorry if it seemed that way.
      - cpach 12y ago
        Yes, there is a hazard in this. But probably also lots of utility for benign causes. So I hope they will outweigh the malicious ones.
    - zanny 12y ago
      I'm curious how you launder money in bitcoin. If you know that some btc was used for a "criminal" exchange, then you can track all the Satoshis through all their recipients. You can just blacklist the money in your country and any retailer using your blacklists would not accept it.
EGreg 12y ago
What is the point of this?
anmol 12y ago
This is awesome. Estonia could have a shot at becoming the "Delaware" for non-US entrepreneurs, esp EU, i.e. have all the high-growth companies incorporate because of clear, friendly startup support infrastructure and laws.
- bjelkeman-again 12y ago
  It is very entrepreneurial of the Estonian government. Quotes from their announcement: "e-residency is also launched as a platform to offer digital services to a global audience with no prior Estonian affiliation – for anybody who wants to run their business and life in the most convenient aka digital way! We plan to keep adding new useful services from early 2015 onwards." http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-Estonias-e-resident-leaflet_sept2014.pdf http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-Eston...
  - otuutti 12y ago
    Deosn't suprise me when the Estonian president has been quite actively involved with for example Slush http://www.slush.org/ http://www.slush.org/
memnips 12y ago
Is there a tax advantage here? Estonia's tax system is supposed to be very simple, and allows for a 0% corporate income tax on all profits that are re-invested into the corporation (source: http://www.incorporate.ee/why-estonia/low-tax-jurisdiction http://www.incorporate.ee/why-estonia/low-tax-jurisdiction). Does this mean I can form a corporate entity in Estonia and gain all the tax benefits without any physical presence?
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  Yes, you can keep the corporate profits in the corporate entity until their distribution. There is a 21% tax though on distributed profits like dividends. Until you keep the money in the company or re-invest to subsidiaries, it's ot taxed. http://www.investinestonia.com/en/investment-guide/tax-system http://www.investinestonia.com/en/investment-guide/tax-syste... The rest depends on various double-taxation treaties which affect more individuals.
- agilebyte 12y ago
  If you want to pay taxes only in Estonia, consult a Double Tax Treaty between Estonia and your country of physical residence. Usually you would be able to employ a person in Estonia to close deals/contracts to qualify. But read the document. As soon as you distribute the profits, 10% tax applies from the Estonian end.
  - alvarosm 12y ago
    Usually, if your country has a DTA with estonia you'll have to pay whatever your country takes for dividend distributions anyway. The DTA means you can pay 10% to Estonia and the rest to your country but in total you're still paying whatever your country wants, in total. There might be other advantages, however, but repatriating dividends is not going to be one of them.
    - agilebyte 12y ago
      Exactly, so you keep the money in the company, reinvesting the profits (and repatriate when you are a resident of say Bahamas or BVI if you build up quite a nest egg).
wellboy 12y ago
Why is Estonia the smartest country? Because in Estonia, EVERYONE needs to learn how to code, from primary school to graduating high school. http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/04/estonia-code-academy/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/04/estonia-code-academy/
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  Related: http://www.computerbasedmath.org/computer-based-math-education-estonia.html http://www.computerbasedmath.org/computer-based-math-educati...
listic 12y ago
What are the differences between residency and e-residency? E.g. they won't allow me to vote, will they? What else?
- fmx 12y ago
  Even (physical) residence will not allow you to vote, only citizenship will. From the site: "This [e-residency] will not entail full legal residency or citizenship or right of entry to Estonia."
  - deleted 12y ago
    [deleted]
  - zxexz 12y ago
    Yeah, only EU citizenship along with residency allows one to vote.
    - listic 12y ago
      Ah, I mixed the two. The fact that English is non-native language for me, didn't help, either. What is (e-)residency good for, then? For anyone Russian reading this: should residency be прописка? It actually was canceled in favor of registration. So, I guess, residency is registration?
mr_spothawk 12y ago
why isn't this an HTTPS site?
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  Why should each marketing site be HTTPS?
  - serf 12y ago
    because (although incorrect) some people consider email addresses to be semi-confidential, and one could profit from the automated scraping of addresses from a router that sees a lot of public traffic.
- UnethicalHacks 12y ago
  because it's only a lead gen page.
ahmett 12y ago
They could have SSL encryption on this site and perhaps launch it under some government TLD instead of .com.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
avaku 12y ago
e-stonian - is obviously how it should have been called ;)
jzd131 12y ago
Most of the team of my startup SaleMove is in Tartu! This is yet another example of how great Estonia is for tech. If you want to develop for a great startup there reach out on our website!
kstrauser 12y ago
Is there any reason why I - being perfectly happy with my American citizenship and residency and having zero intent to change either - should avoid getting one for the novelty of it? I mean, is there any possible downside to getting this thing out of a sci-fi novel?
- eru 12y ago
  There are only some minor downsides to acquiring a second citizenship of a decent country. (Watch out for American residency though, the taxes can be bad.) I don't think there are any downsides to the e-residency, apart from having to give some of your data (and a modest fee) to Estonia.
- pgl 12y ago
  I think the biggest actual barrier to actually getting one would be having to apply in person, and pick up your card in person. Certainly for Americans, not a huge number of people will have two weeks spare and sufficient funds to wait for their application to be processed (or the money to fly to Estonia and back twice in two weeks). Edit: apparently they're "working to add capacity to our embassies to process e-residency applications and issue cards abroad by the end of 2015". This makes the whole thing absolutely amazing. Let's see how the rest of the world reacts, I guess.
- scotty79 12y ago
  How can anyone be happy with American citizenship when it places you under some of most bizzare laws seen in first world countries including huge tax code? I really don't understand why Americans aren't moving out and dumping their citizenships in droves. I know that earning money in USA is supposedly easier than anywhere else but still...
saanilb 12y ago
Interesting Concept, other countries think about it.
6t6t6 12y ago
This is something that has been used in many countries already. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_identity_card http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_identity_card Maybe the main difference is that they will issue it also to non-residents. By the way, I don't know in other countries but in Spain it was a complete failure due to a really bad implementation: only worked with Internet Explorer, reader with proprietary drivers, etc...
huhtenberg 12y ago
Isn't this just a thinly-veiled form of off-shoring? With all related consequences.
embro 12y ago
Estonia is such a nice country for people who own electric cars. They have many level 3 chargers. Source : http://www.plugshare.com http://www.plugshare.com

447 points by jkaljundi 12y ago

xmpir 12y ago

What exactly can one do with this digital identity?

turnip1979 12y ago
http://e-estonia.com/e-residents/e-residency/ http://e-estonia.com/e-residents/e-residency/
Flavius 12y ago
"get secure access to world-leading digital services" - Which basically means... absolutely nothing?
jkaljundi 12y ago
Some background information here: http://e-estonia.com/taavi-kotka-promises-10-million-e-estonians-2025/ http://e-estonia.com/taavi-kotka-promises-10-million-e-eston... Although the first stages will be more towards foreigners who conduct any business in Estonia, the next stages should allow appearance of new business models and internationally operated activities headquartered and registered in Estonia.
- toomuchtodo 12y ago
  The Delaware of the world.
  - pdabbadabba 12y ago
    This actually points out a huge challenge for Estonia. As well as the tax advantages, another (and perhaps the primary) reason businesses incorporate in Delaware is their extremely well developed (and business friendly) body of corporate law (the stuff that governs the relationship between shareholders and the corporation, duties of a board of directors, that sort of thing) and a judiciary that is highly efficient in resolving internal corporate disputes. If you study corporations in any law school in the U.S., they will teach you Delaware law, regardless of what state you are actually in. I would love to see Estonia take on this challenge as well, but it will take a long time and concerted effort.
_delirium 12y ago
It's an ID/credential system that government and financial services will be using. So you'll be able to use the ID/credentials to log in and interact with Estonian entities that use it, like banks, tax authority, corporate registry, etc. Vaguely like an OpenID identity, but run by the Estonian government, and with two-factor authentication. It doesn't in itself give you any specific rights, as far as I can tell ("e-residency" is a bit of a marketing term). It just makes it easier to do things that foreigners are theoretically allowed to do, but which aren't currently very easy to do remotely. For example it's already legal for a foreigner to register a company in Estonia, but it's a bit of a hassle if you aren't an Estonian resident; this is supposed to make it easier, because you'll be electronically "in the system" with a proper ID number and login, making it easier for agencies and financial institutions to know how to deal with you. Especially since it's combined with a move towards self-service online portals for government services, so you should be able to log in with this ID and do a lot of things over the internet, instead of visiting civil-service offices. Here (Denmark) all that is also theoretically true—anyone with legitimate business in Denmark can get an ID, and once you have one you can do things like register a company entirely online, self-service, as well as interact with banks and anyone else who implements the "NemID". But in practice the authorities are very suspicious of anyone not living in Denmark trying to get into the system, so almost the only non-residents who do so are Swedes and Germans who either commute cross-border or have frequent business in Denmark.
- jkaljundi 12y ago
  Actually many private entities use it as well. It's an authentication layer anyone can easily implement. Same for digital signatures.

tvanantwerp 12y ago

"To apply for one, you need to make visit a Police and Border Guard office in Estonia – there you need to submit an application and provide biometrical data (your facial image and fingerprints) for background check."

jkaljundi 12y ago
How this is supposed to work in the future - hopefully soon - is for you to be able to authenticate yourself in any friendly embassy or consulate. The first issuance must be with a strong proof of identity.
spindritf 12y ago
"We are working to add capacity to our embassies to process e-residency applications and issue cards abroad by the end of 2015 – so that you would not necessarily need to travel to Estonia to join us as an e-resident." From the leaflet [PDF] http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-Estonias-e-resident-leaflet_sept2014.pdf http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-Eston...
anemic 12y ago
are the facial image and fingerprints only used for background check, are they stored (and for how long) and are they shared with different entities, such as police or foreign governments?
- daveloyall 12y ago
  Background check? Wouldn't this kind of ID be granted to anyone, so long as they are who they say they are, so long as their identity is vetted. I think selectively doling out benefits or rights is the job of a separate system. (And if everyone has one of these IDs, the design of the second system could be simpler than it might be otherwise. I think.)
- irve 12y ago
  they store it in citizen database. as of now they do not share the fingerprints with our regular police. the face they probably get. I think that our local spy people have access to them (there was a theory about them managing our offshore database backups and therefore never asking for anything); if and how they share it is not disclosed. foreign governments might get access through travel information agreements (biometric passports were a requirement for free travel to US) but I am not certain about those details.

ikawe 12y ago

"The one-time state fee for the card is 50 euros, other fees will depend on service providers – public digital services will be offered mostly free-of-charge, just like to ‘real’ residents."

daveloyall 12y ago

For some time, I have daydreamed of various cool scenarios that would only be possible with a government-issued digital ID. But in my daydreams, I've never considered a third-party government issuer. I don't see value in this beyond the value that I see in a corporate-issued digital ID, and that's hardly more valuable than a self-issued ID. Obviously, Estonia has considered some angle which I have not. You can become an e-Estonian! They should probably change that to e-Stonian or something so that it's pronounced "eastonian". :) The "eee-eh" is awkward to pronounce.

jkaljundi 12y ago
Which scenarios have you thought of? A start would be to do anything an Estonian can do today online in almost real time. Founding a company online: 5 minutes and you're in business. Very simple tax and other legislation, so very simple reporting online - and getting tax refunds if needed in a few days. But this should not be limited to existing legacy services we use. Think of what you could do anything online with an absolute cryptographically strong vetted proof, that it's you, valid across the world? That's very different from a corporate ID which has no power internationally.
- daveloyall 12y ago
  * Will and testament * Voting * Facebook (or whatever) * Spam * Banking * Contracts * Jury duty (Don't think boring.. think sci-fi!) * Taxes * Whistleblowing * Bar tabs * Power of Attorney (This one has new meaning in this context. It's a technical thing, a provable act of delegation.) * Police reports Basically the same use cases as PKI, but if it were government issued, the common person would know what it means. A conversation about a fender bender might include "Then, he drove off without e-signing the standard insurance form!". I dunno. Like I said, daydreaming.
  - jkaljundi 12y ago
    Seems pretty practical and doable for me. Probably more than half of these will be available to you via the Estonian e-residency. The government and ministry under which this is is pretty open to ideas that need a change of legislation to make the e-services available and happen. So keep those ideas coming. The thing about Estonian e-services has always been that while many other countries say it's not doable, Estonia just does it. Possible in a lean country of smart people.

lifeisstillgood 12y ago

Two things leap out - who makes the smart card? What is the model? - wow - that's just like Neal Stephenson and joining Tribes based not on location but membership. But I can't see myself going to Estonia just to pick one up ... I'll wait till the embassy in London does it :-)

jkaljundi 12y ago
It's made by Trüb in Switzerland, the leading player in Europe in issuing national id cards: http://www.trueb.ch/en/identity-card/secure-citizens http://www.trueb.ch/en/identity-card/secure-citizens Here are the Estonian specs: http://www.id.ee/index.php?id=35772 http://www.id.ee/index.php?id=35772
asstonian 12y ago
EstEID specification - covers all ID-card application versions issued in Estonia: http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-App-v3_5-20140327.pdf http://www.id.ee/public/TB-SPEC-EstEID-Chip-App-v3_5-2014032... The Estonian ID-card and Digital Signature Concept: http://www.id.ee/public/The_Estonian_ID_Card_and_Digital_Signature_Concept.pdf http://www.id.ee/public/The_Estonian_ID_Card_and_Digital_Sig...
jp555 12y ago
Ah yes the Phyles of Diamond age. But this e-residency is still within the confines of a nation-state, whereas Stephenson's Phyles/Tribes replace the nation-state. I can see Bitcoin - or its decedents - easily being used for Phyle "ID-card" infrastructure; no nation-state required.

ikawe 12y ago

I was in Estonia two days ago. I just passed through on a whim as part of a European bicycle tour. I am embarrassed to admit, I knew very little about the country before being there. I was only there a week, so my impressions are addmittedly naive, but very positive. There was a lot of technology forward thinking - online voting, constitutional right to internet access, co-working spaces catering to young entrepreneurs. So quite hight tech on the one hand, and on the other hand, there is a deep respect for and serious comprehension of nature. The country is 50% forest! And my experience with Estonian camp sites was that they were free, ancient, and beautiful. I felt like I was camping in a sacred grove (I probably was). Man, wish I had stayed longer. Anyone doing any cool projects there?

jkaljundi 12y ago
Re projects, here's a list of some of the Estonian startups: http://hub.garage48.org/estonian-startups http://hub.garage48.org/estonian-startups
sudowhodoido 12y ago
I see a lot of that across Europe. I've been dying to do a road trip out that way (from the UK) but it's difficult with three children. Everyone I've met and spoken to out there has been through some serious shit right up until the late 1990s from wars to genocides. They really are forward thinking because looking back hurts badly. It might sound cheesy but I have a lot of hope for Europe and most of it comes from the East. At the same time I'm disgusted at how the media and general population treats our fellow Europeans.
- vidarh 12y ago
  > Everyone I've met and spoken to out there has been through some serious shit right up until the late 1990s from wars to genocides. "Out there"? I'm going to presume that the wars and genocide you're talking about was the former Yugoslavia, as not many places fit the bill unless you go looking much further away, in which case Estonia is almost as far from there as it is from the UK (driving distance can go either way depending on route). And still 1700km from Estonia to Donetsk, Ukraine if you want to include that conflict...

duckingtest 12y ago

There's nothing particularly Estonian to this - you can buy European digital identity in all EU countries (except Great Britain and Ireland, last I checked). All documents signed by your key are legally as valid as those signed by your hand. Sadly, it's not used much outside of government services.

throwaway_yy2Di 12y ago
Isn't that for citizens and residents of those EU states? This "e-residency" is for anyone in the world: there's 241 nations in the "Your Country" menu. (which by the way is a few years outdated: e.g. there's no South Sudan, and Libya is still the "Libyan Arab Jamahiriya", which was Qaddafi's name for it).
- duckingtest 12y ago
  No, it's the exact same thing (although it appears to be the cheapest in Estonia), it's the exact same EU-wide law. The only difference is they market it for foreigners.

tikums 12y ago

And then be sure to read this: https://estoniaevoting.org/ https://estoniaevoting.org/ E-future cannot be built if we don't fix serious issues with software engineering. There is no guarantee of security. There is no assurance. We basically don't know how to build secure systems yet. As daily events show (from #fappening, #shellshock to Snowden's revelations), this is one of those "hard", unresolved problems...and not just from algorithmic (non-repudiation) perspective, but also from a practical engineering perspective (we are still dealing with buffer overflows). “The software security industry today is at about the same stage as the auto industry was in 1930" ... "it looks fast, goes nice but in an accident you die.” ... "The major shortfall is absence of assurance (or safety) mechanisms in software. If my car crashed as often as my computer does, I would be dead by now.” -- Brian Snow, Former Technical Director of the NSA, We Need Assurance http://www.research.att.com/talks_and_events/2008_distinguis.. http://www.research.att.com/talks_and_events/2008_distinguis....

asstonian 12y ago
sigh, not this again. only found this not-very-good response in english to those "experts": http://www.vvk.ee/valimiste-korraldamine/vvk-uudised/vabariigi-valimiskomisjoni-vastulause-the-guardianis-ilmunud-artiklile/ http://www.vvk.ee/valimiste-korraldamine/vvk-uudised/vabarii... but saying "terribly insecure" is more than wrong. yeah, thare are many procedural things which could be better, but technologically estonian e-voting is secure. only serious threat is propaganda.
- tikums 12y ago
  Are you saying it's resistant to penetration by Russian security services? Sorry if I don't take your word for it. They have just successfully hacked into several of the top financial institutions in the world: http://www.networkworld.com/article/2691902/security0/russian-hackers-reportedly-behind-jp-morgan-data-breach-this-summer.html http://www.networkworld.com/article/2691902/security0/russia... They got away with customer data and who-knows-what-else. I'm pretty sure JP Morgan has a bigger cyber-security budged than the whole state of Estonia, many times over. And then check the laundry list of these: http://cybercampaigns.net/ http://cybercampaigns.net/ The basic truth is: we still don't quite know how to design digital information systems that can resist attacks from very persistent or nation state level actors. Even if these are air-gaped (as demonstrated by Stuxnet).

deleted 12y ago

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lifeisstillgood 12y ago

plainOldText 12y ago

I believe this has huge implications for someone who would want to operate a company from a business friendly country, as opposed to say a country where the individual is located physically but is otherwise corrupt or war ridden. My understanding is that this status allows you to form companies, open bank accounts and sign binding documents just like someone living in Estonia. And that is pretty impressive. Add cryptocurrencies into play, and whole new world of companies is now suddenly possible.

boh 12y ago
"Money laundering has never been so easy! Thanks E-stonia!"
- cpach 12y ago
  So money laundering is the only reason for using cryptocurrencies? And who says cryptocurrencies can’t be regulated?
  - boh 12y ago
    Shell companies are one of the greatest instruments for graft ever devised. I'm not a fan of them, and they get easier to make with every passing year. I don't have an opinion on cryptocurrencies. I'm sorry if it seemed that way.
    - cpach 12y ago
      Yes, there is a hazard in this. But probably also lots of utility for benign causes. So I hope they will outweigh the malicious ones.
  - zanny 12y ago
    I'm curious how you launder money in bitcoin. If you know that some btc was used for a "criminal" exchange, then you can track all the Satoshis through all their recipients. You can just blacklist the money in your country and any retailer using your blacklists would not accept it.

EGreg 12y ago

What is the point of this?

anmol 12y ago

This is awesome. Estonia could have a shot at becoming the "Delaware" for non-US entrepreneurs, esp EU, i.e. have all the high-growth companies incorporate because of clear, friendly startup support infrastructure and laws.

bjelkeman-again 12y ago
It is very entrepreneurial of the Estonian government. Quotes from their announcement: "e-residency is also launched as a platform to offer digital services to a global audience with no prior Estonian affiliation – for anybody who wants to run their business and life in the most convenient aka digital way! We plan to keep adding new useful services from early 2015 onwards." http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-Estonias-e-resident-leaflet_sept2014.pdf http://e-estonia.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Become-Eston...
- otuutti 12y ago
  Deosn't suprise me when the Estonian president has been quite actively involved with for example Slush http://www.slush.org/ http://www.slush.org/

memnips 12y ago

Is there a tax advantage here? Estonia's tax system is supposed to be very simple, and allows for a 0% corporate income tax on all profits that are re-invested into the corporation (source: http://www.incorporate.ee/why-estonia/low-tax-jurisdiction http://www.incorporate.ee/why-estonia/low-tax-jurisdiction). Does this mean I can form a corporate entity in Estonia and gain all the tax benefits without any physical presence?

jkaljundi 12y ago
Yes, you can keep the corporate profits in the corporate entity until their distribution. There is a 21% tax though on distributed profits like dividends. Until you keep the money in the company or re-invest to subsidiaries, it's ot taxed. http://www.investinestonia.com/en/investment-guide/tax-system http://www.investinestonia.com/en/investment-guide/tax-syste... The rest depends on various double-taxation treaties which affect more individuals.
agilebyte 12y ago
If you want to pay taxes only in Estonia, consult a Double Tax Treaty between Estonia and your country of physical residence. Usually you would be able to employ a person in Estonia to close deals/contracts to qualify. But read the document. As soon as you distribute the profits, 10% tax applies from the Estonian end.
- alvarosm 12y ago
  Usually, if your country has a DTA with estonia you'll have to pay whatever your country takes for dividend distributions anyway. The DTA means you can pay 10% to Estonia and the rest to your country but in total you're still paying whatever your country wants, in total. There might be other advantages, however, but repatriating dividends is not going to be one of them.
  - agilebyte 12y ago
    Exactly, so you keep the money in the company, reinvesting the profits (and repatriate when you are a resident of say Bahamas or BVI if you build up quite a nest egg).

wellboy 12y ago

Why is Estonia the smartest country? Because in Estonia, EVERYONE needs to learn how to code, from primary school to graduating high school. http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/04/estonia-code-academy/ http://venturebeat.com/2012/09/04/estonia-code-academy/

jkaljundi 12y ago
Related: http://www.computerbasedmath.org/computer-based-math-education-estonia.html http://www.computerbasedmath.org/computer-based-math-educati...

listic 12y ago

What are the differences between residency and e-residency? E.g. they won't allow me to vote, will they? What else?

fmx 12y ago
Even (physical) residence will not allow you to vote, only citizenship will. From the site: "This [e-residency] will not entail full legal residency or citizenship or right of entry to Estonia."
- deleted 12y ago
  [deleted]
- zxexz 12y ago
  Yeah, only EU citizenship along with residency allows one to vote.
  - listic 12y ago
    Ah, I mixed the two. The fact that English is non-native language for me, didn't help, either. What is (e-)residency good for, then? For anyone Russian reading this: should residency be прописка? It actually was canceled in favor of registration. So, I guess, residency is registration?

mr_spothawk 12y ago

why isn't this an HTTPS site?

jkaljundi 12y ago
Why should each marketing site be HTTPS?
- serf 12y ago
  because (although incorrect) some people consider email addresses to be semi-confidential, and one could profit from the automated scraping of addresses from a router that sees a lot of public traffic.
UnethicalHacks 12y ago
because it's only a lead gen page.

ahmett 12y ago

They could have SSL encryption on this site and perhaps launch it under some government TLD instead of .com.

deleted 12y ago

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avaku 12y ago

e-stonian - is obviously how it should have been called ;)

jzd131 12y ago

Most of the team of my startup SaleMove is in Tartu! This is yet another example of how great Estonia is for tech. If you want to develop for a great startup there reach out on our website!

kstrauser 12y ago

Is there any reason why I - being perfectly happy with my American citizenship and residency and having zero intent to change either - should avoid getting one for the novelty of it? I mean, is there any possible downside to getting this thing out of a sci-fi novel?

eru 12y ago
There are only some minor downsides to acquiring a second citizenship of a decent country. (Watch out for American residency though, the taxes can be bad.) I don't think there are any downsides to the e-residency, apart from having to give some of your data (and a modest fee) to Estonia.
pgl 12y ago
I think the biggest actual barrier to actually getting one would be having to apply in person, and pick up your card in person. Certainly for Americans, not a huge number of people will have two weeks spare and sufficient funds to wait for their application to be processed (or the money to fly to Estonia and back twice in two weeks). Edit: apparently they're "working to add capacity to our embassies to process e-residency applications and issue cards abroad by the end of 2015". This makes the whole thing absolutely amazing. Let's see how the rest of the world reacts, I guess.
scotty79 12y ago
How can anyone be happy with American citizenship when it places you under some of most bizzare laws seen in first world countries including huge tax code? I really don't understand why Americans aren't moving out and dumping their citizenships in droves. I know that earning money in USA is supposedly easier than anywhere else but still...

saanilb 12y ago

Interesting Concept, other countries think about it.

6t6t6 12y ago

This is something that has been used in many countries already. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_identity_card http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_identity_card Maybe the main difference is that they will issue it also to non-residents. By the way, I don't know in other countries but in Spain it was a complete failure due to a really bad implementation: only worked with Internet Explorer, reader with proprietary drivers, etc...

huhtenberg 12y ago

Isn't this just a thinly-veiled form of off-shoring? With all related consequences.

embro 12y ago

Estonia is such a nice country for people who own electric cars. They have many level 3 chargers. Source : http://www.plugshare.com http://www.plugshare.com