Article content
The UK is launching its own digital ID, citing Estonia as an inspiration. As a dual citizen of both countries, Adam Rang explains why his digital ID is not only more convenient but also more secure and private than the UK’s existing patchwork ID system.
While the UK debates how digital IDs could hypothetically change our lives in future, it’s worth remembering that many thousands of us Brits already use digital IDs in our present daily reality.
Our experiences are entirely at odds with much of the media reporting and commentary on the topic at the moment, which frames the UK’s proposed plans for a digital ID as a supposed trade-off between privacy and convenience.
Estonia has so far issued about 10,000 digital IDs to British citizens who are either expats, ‘e-residents’, or dual citizens like me, enabling us to compare life with and without them, even while in the UK.
From our perspective, the UK’s existing patchwork ID system compromises both privacy and convenience. It forces us to share far more data than necessary repeatedly, making us vulnerable to malicious actors while hindering prosperity and making it more cumbersome to access services.
A well-designed digital ID puts citizens back in control, and Estonia is a prime example of this. Estonia began issuing digital IDs to all of its citizens and residents nearly a quarter of a century ago, and the vast majority now use their digital IDs on a regular, often daily basis to access public and private services.
Digital IDs are incredibly popular across all demographics, with approximately 85% of Estonians reporting trust in their digital ID-enabled services, which include banking and voting. A new OECD study from just this past week shows that satisfaction with Estonian public services is among the highest in the EU and significantly above the European average, with the digital ID system cited as a key reason.
Estonia has also shown that digital IDs are certainly not just for the tech-savvy. In fact, it’s often the elderly and rural who benefit the most from access to secure and intuitive digital services, rather than having to rely on phone lines and carrying paperwork to different parts of the state. Much of that could be done in a few clicks or eliminated.
The UK has cited Estonia’s success at streamlining bureaucracy and saving taxpayer money as inspiration for creating a digital ID system that meets the needs of modern Britain.
As a result, critics of the proposal have been keen to poke holes in Estonia’s success; however, they ironically highlight further evidence of why support for it continues to rise.
They point out that, in 2021, a hacker was briefly able to obtain ID photos. The context they omit is that the photos were downloaded from the open web through a database not secured by digital ID, like all UK services gathering our data right now. Estonians responded by further strengthening their digital society, and to date, no digital ID has ever been compromised.
Bear in mind that most of us use our digital IDs for banking, and none of us have ever seen a cent disappear without our authorisation.
And so, indeed, no one in Estonia is arguing for the switch-off of digital IDs and the adoption of workarounds, such as posting utility bills and bank statements, just to confirm basic facts repeatedly.
It should be noted that Estonians, like Brits, have a deep-rooted historical and cultural aversion to any hint of a surveillance state. The Estonians were actually forced to live under two of the worst of them, both Nazis and Soviets, following the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact that led to a brutal half-century occupation.
Those regimes inflicted mass repressions, without any digital technology, but which only strengthened the determination of Estonians to live freely without interference, including from their own state. Estonia now consistently ranks as one of the freest countries in the world.
Estonia gets a high score of 95 out of 100 in the latest Freedom in the World Index, according to Freedom House, which also ranks Estonia second globally for internet freedom. Reporters Without Borders also ranks Estonia second globally for press freedom.
Bucking global trends, Estonia was elevated to full democracy status last year by the Economist Democracy Index, a strictly measured assessment. Just 6.6% of the world’s population enjoys this level of freedom, where rights and civic participation are fully thriving.
Estonians wouldn’t have it any other way. To suggest that they achieved all this despite pioneering digital IDs over the same period would be somewhat baffling, not least to the Estonians themselves.
Estonians had to rebuild their public services and economy from scratch, using limited resources, while also restoring the privacy that they highly value. That’s why they designed a digital ID system, not just to streamline bureaucracy and improve services, but to build in safeguards that enable citizens to secure their data and see how it is being used.
Like many Brits today, I had little interest in using a digital ID when I first received one while living in Glasgow. But my grandparents were welcomed into Britain as refugees when Estonia was occupied. I was issued a digital ID as a dual citizen, despite having few connections to the country during my upbringing.
It wasn’t until Estonia launched e-Residency more than ten years ago, offering digital IDs globally, that I realised the advantage I had.
British journalist Edward Lucas was the first ever e-resident, and more than 5,000 Brits have now signed up, using their digital IDs from Estonia to better access services online and to instantly sign contracts online, all while still living in the UK or anywhere else with an internet connection. Like many of them, I started my first company using my digital ID, and this intuitive, paperless, and zero-bureaucracy experience has completely changed my perspective on the existing UK system, which we have somehow normalised.
What even is a digital ID
The best way to understand digital IDs is to recognise that they are not a technology. The technology continues to evolve, but your ID always remains yours.
At its heart, you first need a unique identifier. Brits already have about ten state-issued unique identification numbers scattered across different services. We have a National Insurance (NI) number, an NHS number, yet another NHS number that’s used internally, a unique taxpayer reference, a driving license number, a passport number, a voter registration number, and more.
If you’re like me, you store your NI number card somewhere at the bottom of a drawer filled with batteries and receipts, and need to go searching for it once every couple of years. My card still refers to the UK’s Department of Social Security, which has since been abolished.
But what if a number like that, requiring no card, could be put to work for us every day?
Once citizens have a unique identifier and the secure ability to confirm it’s theirs, the digital ID system is basically a set of principles and rules for how it can be used effectively. This then enables the public and private sectors to build an ecosystem of smarter and more secure services around it.
Estonians decided that citizens should only have to give data once and that it should only be accessed as much as needed for the purposes of delivering those services as agreed. It’s as far from a social credit system as possible and far more protective of data than the existing UK system.
It’s absurd that when we need to prove we are over 18 in the UK, we currently show a driving license that lists not just our date of birth, but even our full home address. In principle, we shouldn’t even have to show our date of birth. We’re not expecting the bouncer at the club to remember to send us a birthday present. You can continue to carry around a card and flash all that data if you want, but I’d rather have the option of a digital ID that can transmit that single piece of data that I’m over 18.
Meanwhile, to provide proactive services, there are secure integrations between digital services, along what the Estonians call their X-Road. It makes state bureaucracy invisible while the processes behind it are fully transparent.
If you have a baby in the UK, you must then inform different parts of the state, even if your baby was born in one of the state’s own hospitals. They should really already know. In Estonia, services from across the state, like child benefits, can kick in seamlessly while you focus on recovering with your newborn.
Just the digital signature alone is estimated to save five working days every year, according to research from e-Estonia.
Over the years, I’ve tested my digital ID to the absolute limits. I’ve started a business while having a sauna and voted in a national election while submerged in ice water, just to prove how easy it is to use anywhere.
Citizens own their data
Crucially, there is no centralised database storing all your data.
Anyone can build services around the digital ID using its API, but that certainly doesn’t give the state access to all your data. If a supermarket enables you to use your digital ID as a loyalty card, then you just gain the convenience. My doctor and dentist would not be happy with the amount of chocolate I put in my basket each week, but they won’t know unless they read this article.
My doctor can only access my health records, and I can see precisely when they do that. This is where it gets fascinating.
When you visit a doctor in the UK, your most sensitive personal health data is being typed into a computer right in front of you, yet we don’t know how it is secured or who has access to it. Without a digital ID, we can only be sure that it’s not us.
With digital IDs, Estonians can not only manage their services, such as health, much more easily, but they also get a data tracker to see who exactly is looking at their data.
People in different parts of the state will have access to certain parts of our data through their own digital ID if it’s necessary to perform their job, but they still cannot browse without a good reason. If we see any access to our data that we don’t understand, we can demand an explanation.
This isn’t hypothetical. In one case, early during the pandemic, a nosy neighbour in Estonia wanted to know why an ambulance had been called to someone on their street. Presumably, they wanted to know whether COVID had arrived, so they asked a family member who worked as a nurse at the local hospital, who then looked it up using their own digital ID.
It may have been a fair concern at the time, but it was a totally inappropriate use of data. The check appeared in the patient’s own data tracker, and the nurse was summoned before a judge.
In the UK, incidents in which healthcare records are accessed inappropriately often come to light only in the most extreme circumstances, such as a case last year in which a hospital receptionist shared private medical data on Snapchat and to one victim at a bar. How much more abuse isn’t being caught due to the lack of digital IDs?
A very British digital ID
A universal digital ID is so helpful that if the UK doesn’t go ahead with a state-backed version, then big tech will quickly fill the void with multiple competing systems and, once we use that across banking, legal signatures, and so much else, it will become increasingly absurd why we can’t use it for state services too.
By that point, though, the UK will have lost a lead on innovation, and we’d have given up a lot of public control over a digital ID system that should empower citizens.
Estonians view their digital society in a similar way to how Brits view their NHS. It was once a big, ambitious national idea, but it has now become so normalised that it can be baffling to see how people in other countries live without it.
However, while Estonia has been keenly sharing its experiences and expertise, which has earned it support from across the entire political spectrum, a British digital ID won’t be a carbon copy of the Estonian model.
Just as the Estonians embraced digitalisation through a ‘Tiger Leap’ as the policy was known, Brits can take a leap of their own by building on the best practices they have seen elsewhere (and not just from Estonia), trying new ideas of their own, and crafting a digital ID system that is distinctly British.
Other countries are doing the same, embracing digital IDs in their own unique cultural way. In Japan, for example, the digital ID is being developed not with a unique identifying number but as a digital hanko based on the system of stamps currently used for authenticating documents.
As for Brits, it’s at least clear that we don’t like carrying an ID card, and so there is no reason for a digital ID card. Beyond that, Brits must decide for themselves what a British digital ID will be and what principles will govern it. This is about building a digital society, not just a digital state, and so everyone has a place in that discussion.
But if Brits need more advice based on real experiences of using digital IDs, then they know who to ask.
Estonians never forget how the British always supported Estonia’s freedom, stretching back to the Estonian War of Independence, when the Royal Navy provided cover and supplies. There are memorials in Tallinn to the Royal Navy sailors who lost their lives, and Estonian sailors stand guard over their graves when Brits mark Remembrance Day.
During the long years of occupation, Britain not only gave a new home to displaced people like my grandparents. The UK maintained Estonia’s diplomatic presence in London. It consistently refused to accept Moscow’s annexation, instead insisting that Estonia and its Baltic neighbours remained independent states in international law and that their freedom would be restored.
Once they regained control, Estonians didn’t make any trade-offs with their privacy and freedom. If the UK also decides to adopt digital IDs to enhance public services and boost prosperity, then the UK shouldn’t make any trade-offs either.
