X-Road is the backbone of e-Estonia. It's the invisible yet crucial environment that allows the nation's various e-services databases, both in the public and private sector, to link up and operate in harmony.
One of the key elements of e-Estonia is that its databases are decentralized, which means:
- There's no single owner or controller.
- Every government agency or business can choose the product that's right for them.
- Services can be added one at a time, as they're ready.
X-Road is the all-important connection between these databases, the tool that allows them to work together for maximum impact. All of the Estonian e-solutions that use multiple databases use X-Road.
Originally X-Road was a system used for making queries to the different databases. Now it has developed into a tool that can also write to multiple databases, transmit large data sets and perform searches across several databases.
X-Road was designed with growth in mind, so can be scaled up as new e-services, with their various platforms, come online.
Currently there are more than 800 organizations, public registers and databases connected to the X-Road and this number is increasing.
Learn more details and regulations regarding the X-Road here.
