Interoperability services

X-Road®, an open-source software and ecosystem solution that provides unified and secure data exchange between private and public sector organisations, is the backbone of e-Estonia. Invisible yet crucial, it allows the nation’s various public and private sector e-service information systems to link up and function in harmony.

Estonia’s X-Road environment “X-tee” – where the name of X-Road derives from – includes a full range of services for the general public, and since each service has its own information system, they all rely on X-Road. To ensure secure transfers, all outgoing data is digitally signed and encrypted, and all incoming data is authenticated and logged.

X-Road connects different information systems that may include a variety of services. It has developed into a tool that can also write to multiple information systems, transmit large data sets and perform searches across several information systems simultaneously. X-Road was designed with growth in mind, so it can be scaled up as new e-services and platforms come online.