5th June, 2016, after getting off the boat to Estonia, we had wonderful day to discover this small beautiful country. This is the first time we been in Estonia, and like other countries, we had a lot of unforgettable experience and learned a great deal of new things in this city. Estonia has 45.227 square km with 1.312 million of population, however 55 percent of the country area is covered by forest. It is interesting that Estonia is the second country with a literacy rate of 99.8 percent out of the nearly 200 countries in the world and has flat income tax of 20 percent.
The first day at Tallinn, we visited The Old Town of Tallinn and discovered some of the most fascinating aspects of Tallinn’s rich history and present life. With its numerous old buildings and churches that are surrounded by huge city walls and towers, the medieval center of Tallinn is one of the most beautiful and attractive center.
And also, with numerous small narrow streets and staircases in The Old Town, we have enjoyed many good foods and spent a great time with our friends there.
On the second day, we visited E-Estonia where we are able to understand more about life in the digital society. E-Estonia allows citizen in this country interacts with the state by offering each citizen the e-Resident ID card which contains a microchip with two security certificates: one for authentication, called PIN1, and another for digital signing, called PIN2. And also, the government of Estonia has built an empowering system that each citizen can control their own data, they can do everything online with their ID card include i-Voting, e-Tax Board, e- Business, e-Banking, e-School, University. There are many benefits that citizens received from this system. First, the system is simple and easy to use for all people. People can vote in elections from their home, filing their income tax return in just 3 minutes as the system has scan and get all necessary information to pre fill the form and they are able to sign legally binding contract from everywhere in the world through the Internet. In addition, any citizens can register business in 18 minutes, check competitive company and property online and go to hospital with ID card only cause 99 percent of prescriptions is online. Second, the system is very efficiency because it saves government a lot of money and time. By introducing digital signatures that are equivalent to handwritten signatures, the government can save 2 percent of GDP per year and reduce 1/3 queues at the hospital. Finally, in 2016, the government of Estonia target to broadband in 88 percent of homes, cover 3G and 4G the whole city and build Wi-Fi areas all around the city.
Estonia is seen as a remarkable success story in the context of e-government. Although there could be problems with data protection, the system does more cons than pros for their citizens. Therefore, in the future, the x-road of this system should be applied through Europe countries.
