Estonia has been an unlikely trailblazer in e-governance innovations, emerging from Soviet occupation with decrepit communications infrastructure and a visionary plan for its digital transformation. A group of Hertie School and Oxford students toured the e-Estonia state and came away duly impressed, but not without questions about its relevance for other contexts.
There is a lot about Estonia’s digital miracle that doesn’t seem to make sense – until you set foot in Tallinn. Of anywhere on the planet, why is this country, tucked unassumingly into the northeast corner of Europe, a trailblazer for e-governance and digital innovation? A group of Hertie School and Oxford students traveled to Tallinn last fall seeking answers to this and other questions. Could Estonia be a model for other countries – and what are the potential pitfalls of replication? Our journey started on a sunny October afternoon in 2024. Estonia’s journey began in late summer 1991.
When Estonia regained independence from the Soviet Union, its independent future was essentially a blank slate. Nearly fifty years of occupation had left it with infrastructure that predated Soviet control. When it declined Finland’s offer of its 1970’s analog phone system (an upgrade from Estonia’s 1930’s-era system), Estonia made the crucial choice to invest in the same state-of-the-art digital telephone network Finland was adopting. It was this rejection of hand-me-down technology that laid the groundwork for a pragmatic, innovative transformation aimed at achieving a lean, effective, democratic government for the benefit of Estonians.
Our group’s first visit was to the Tallinn University of Technology, affectionately nicknamed TalTech. This stop would set the stage for our immersion into the e-Estonia state, covering the enabling environment for Estonia’s digital innovation, its state-issued digital IDs, and Estonia’s three eras of digital transformation – the digitalisation era, where traditional public services incorporated emerging digital platforms; the transformation era, defined by the transition to digitally enabled service delivery and data platforms; and the contemporary post-digital era with its digitally enabled personalisation of public services.
Students come to TalTech from across the world to learn about e-Estonia. Our opening speakers, students Eric Jackson and Richard Dreyling, both from the United States, were among the few “outsider” perspectives on the program. Immediately they highlighted the importance of context in e-Estonia: From the outset, the country’s digital transformation benefited from high levels of in-country IT prowess and public trust in the state.
While Estonia is a notable example for other countries to learn from, its path is not a stencil to mimic. Our group was undeniably impressed by Estonia’s accomplishments over just thirty-odd years, but their questions reflected the difficulty of superimposing Estonia’s experience on their home countries’ different cultural, economic and political contexts. In my own country, the US, where people are skeptical about the federal government’s ability to deliver on its promises, digitalisation will certainly progress differently than elsewhere.
With the rejection of legacy technology and the upskilling of Estonian society, focused mainly on young people, Estonia’s first post-Soviet leaders initiated the e-governance movement. The Tiigrihüpe, or “Tiger Leap” program began in 1997 and built-up digital infrastructure for schools. It was the brainchild of then-diplomat and future President Toomas Hendrik Ilves. Ilves had a personal interest in technology that he promoted wholeheartedly during his civil service. Schoolchildren were given access to the internet and computers, cementing valuable skills for future generations. Other innovations followed, including universal digital IDs for citizens, secure data exchange between government offices via the X-road platform, and self-service pharmacy vending stations piloted in 2023.
A trove of impressive digital innovations
Our group was introduced to many of these innovations, some flashy and attention-grabbing and others more subtle. Kit Kuksenok EMPA student at the Hertie school) took note of Estonia’s pioneering usage of synthetic data. “In the context of health data especially, I was interested to learn about the use of synthetic data as a privacy-enhancing measure,” they said, noting that data privacy and security came up in every discussion. “In this approach, synthetic data is generated that reflects the properties of real data, determined based on specific context and use. This synthetic data can be used in developing and testing data-driven applications with health data while protecting privacy.”
Other students were interested in the decisions and strategy behind e-Estonia. Franco Bastida’s (MPP and MDS student at the Hertie School) key takeaway is that “digital government success is less about size or resources, and more about leadership, vision, bold use of data, and coordination, all of which are key to policymaking.”
From an American perspective, much of the Estonian experience can seem fantastical. The idea of citizens racing to file their taxes the fastest (the average time in Estonia is 3 seconds) is an other-worldly concept to nationals of a country famous for the troves of forms that accompany Tax Day (the average time in the United States is 13 hours). What is a marathon for Americans is a sprint for Estonians, thanks to three decades of e-governance innovations. It’s a system that strives to minimise its invasion into the lives of citizens, in exchange for their high degree of trust in government.
For Estonia, this model works well. Decades of trial have made the country the most digitally capable nation on Earth. And there are lessons in Estonia’s transformation for other countries. Estonia has helped several African countries develop their own digital strategies and infrastructure. And I think the United States and others would benefit from a public upskilling initiative in the mold of Estonia’s Tiger Leap. But this draws us back to the need for country-specific context.
Countries have different challenges that shape their digital strategies. In the US, these include both the lack of trust in authority (which seems to worsen by the day in our hyper-partisan climate) and the decentralised nature of our governing and regulatory systems. In this context, there is more room for states to maneuver and take the lead, but that presents its own vulnerabilities and challenges.
From the Estonian context, I’ve gleaned an appreciation for their system, but also a sense that we may not know the whole story. With the exception of our first conversation with the two American students at TalTech, the presenters seemed eager to dispel any questions of shortcomings in Estonia’s system. In particular, we questioned whether such robust and comprehensive e-governance systems might be vulnerable to misuse and abuse – by lone bureaucratic actors, certainly, but more worryingly, by the state itself against its own citizens.
No government is beyond the temptation, and balancing that reality with the lean, mean digital services governments strive for must be a top priority in democratic societies. As more nations embrace the benefits of digitalisation and e-government, a pragmatic approach must govern over an idealised vision, or risk democratic norms taking a back seat in the name of convenience and innovation. My fellow Hertie School student Christine Cepelak sums up well the challenge for digitalising democracies: “There is still a lot of research to be done about trust, relationships and accountability in democracies moving towards an e-government.”