10 years after the eastward expansion of the EU, I was in Estonia for the ICT Week last week. There one follows the current events in Ukraine with a certain Anxiety – After all, Estonia was once a Soviet republic and borders directly on Russia. A possible Solution: The Estonian e-government could also survive in the event of an occupation in the cloud - an idea with far-reaching consequences.

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How does Estonia promote ICT?

I met Taavi Kotka, Deputy Secretary General - ICT at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications for Estonia, at 25.04.2014 following his speech at Nordic Digital Agendas Day as part of the Estonian ICT Week.

My video interview therefore revolves around the investments and funding that Estonia intends to put into the ICT sector - and you can see by the very fact that Estonia wants to invest 200 million extra here over the next seven years, just how important the government is this area is.

10 Years of EU Eastern Enlargement - How Estonia overtakes us in IT

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And while 10-old EU eastward expansion eg in the Süddeutschen the cliché of the poor East is still maintained, have long been in Estonia ideas developed, which exceeds the level imaginable in Germany Innovation go out.

It is well known that all government services in Estonia are electronic, including elections, contract conclusions, tax returns and even parent-teacherCommunication in schools. The measure is less well known: Few things like marriages and divorces cannot yet be done electronically.

The first country in the cloud?

The latest ideas from Estonia are no wonder: Estonia is to become the first country in the cloud worldwide. And that's not as crazy as it sounds at first. Estonia has already deposited its electronic data in embassies abroad.

So far, Kotka explained in an interview with the magazine published by Enterprise Estonia “Life in Estonia", the embassies are not designed for such large amounts of data, and the data is primarily kept to function on the territory of the Estonian state. That is exactly what is about to change.

How is the cloud to work?

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For this purpose, according to Kotka in the interview, a network of data messages is to be developed: data centers are to be installed in friendly states with the same data Regulate like in real messages. All data necessary for the functioning of the state should be stored there.

Kotka sees advantages for data security. If a cyberattack is to be carried out in Estonia, Estonia could continue to act as a state.

Land without territory?

But Kotka goes one step further. Even with a territorial attack on Estonia, the cloud could bring significant advantages. So he says in the interview:

Estonians could live in Finland or London, be deported to Siberia or whatever: we could still elect our parliament, collect taxes etc. Businesses would continue to operate, documents would be exchanged, addresses could continually be changed in registers and new citizens would be born … The capacity to support the existence of our state from the cloud would lead to a situation where - considering the recent events in Crimea - it would be much more complicated (ie expensive) to occupy Estonia. There would be no point in conquering the country with tanks, as the state would continue to function from the cloud.

Everyone can soon use the public services

From the land without territory it is not far to another idea that was decided in Estonia just the week before last: introducing the electronic ID card for non-Estonians as well. With that you can too Peoplewho are not Estonian citizens using Estonian e-services such as account management, digital signature or company formation facility.

Yes, Taavi Kotka even goes so far as to say that it should be allowed to buy citizenship rights in different countries. When I asked whether that wouldn't lead to those who were financially better off taking advantage of these freedoms, he answered evasively: Even with the Internet be the first risks been seen, but today we see above all the advantages...

eGovernment: Unimaginable for Germany

This idea is pretty unimaginable for German standards, but it is only logical for Estonians: Because there you can already do pretty much everything online, such as parliamentary elections, contracts, company foundations and cabinet meetings.

Tiit Anmann, CEO of the Estonian Company signwise, explained for another video using the example of the electronic signature, with which contracts and other documents can be signed in Estonia in just a few minutes. In addition, Anmann also gives an insight into the eServices. provided by the Estonian state:

Is that safe?

critic will object that such a country in the cloud is much more vulnerable to cyber attacks than other countries. The Estonians, however, think highly of theirs IT-Security, but concede that it is the perfectly secure ITSystem of course not exist. On Ask after possible misuse of the system and security leaks, however, people like to answer with generalities: that even the security-conscious Germans, for example, use Google & Facebook would use. Or that the greatest uncertainty factor is the human being in the form of internal employees like Edward Snowden, who had succeeded in subverting the NSA's security system.

I also spoke to Andrus Järg, General Manager of Skype Estonia, about the topic of cloud security for sure holds. He therefore has a simple answer for people who ask about the risks: “It is natural for people to be afraid of new developments. It was the same with the computer – and it is normal today. It will be the same with cloud computing.” It sounds good. One can only hope that he is right.

Government in Trial and Error Procedure

In general, people in Estonia have a completely different relationship to innovations: This is how Kotka explained in his Rede at the ICT Week that a government can sometimes make mistakes and should learn from the trial and error process.

And the best government, anyway, is the one you do not see and which operates efficiently in the background.

Development with far-reaching consequences

The developments in Estonia are possibly more far-reaching than many are aware: In good terms, one could say: With so many innovative ideas, who actually needs fixed national borders? And couldn't this idea also make wars superfluous - for example, if the Russians in Ukraine could still live “virtually” in Russia using eGovernment?

Conversely, one must ask oneself: What happens to the people who are subjected to violence in the event of a military attack? Is the fact that the government in the cloud then somewhere further exists, not only to the mere theory?

Some exciting facts about Estonia


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