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The Estonian identity card (Estonian: ID-kaart) is a mandatory identity document for citizens of Estonia. In addition to regular identification of a person, an ID-card can also be used for establishing one's identity in electronic environment and for giving one's digital signature. Within the European Union and EFTA (Iceland, Norway, Switzerland and Liechtenstein) and other countries and territories (Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Northern Cyprus, San Marino, Serbia, Vatican City), the Estonian ID Card can be used by the citizens of Estonia as a travel document.
Contents
- Stored data
- Cryptographic use
- Uses for identification
- Web discussion forums
- Public transport
- Electronic voting
- Use as a travel document
- References
The mandatory identity document of a citizen of the European Union is also an identity card, also named as ID card. By means of the Estonian ID Card that has been issued to the citizen of the European Union, the Estonian border can be crossed, but Estonian Police and Border Guard Board cannot guarantee that other Member States would accept it as travel document .
In practice a German citizen living in Estonia used the Estonian ID card within the EU flying from Tallinn Airport and Riga Airport to Germany. Her returned also from German Airport to Riga Airport. Beside the travels with airplanes the German citizen used the Estonian ID Card between Tallinn and Helsinki or Stockholm at ferries. Finally the Estonian ID card confirmed the identity of the German citizen and has been accepted by travel organisations.
EU nationals should present an ID card instead of an passport to PROVE THE IDENTITY in case of stopping by police or boarding a plane. The question should be, whether a Spanish national MUST travel with the spanish ID card or an Italian national MUST travel with the italian ID card. Finally a German male could travel with and Estonian ID Card for example to Spain only to prove the identity in case of control. Otherwise a German female could travel with an Estonian ID Card to Italy only to prove the identity in case of control. At both ID cards the citizenship (estonian: kodakondsus) are embedded. For German citizen it is written DEU (= Deutschland).
In addition to regular identification of a person, an ID-card can also be used for establishing one's identity in electronic environment and for giving one's digital signature. With the Estonian ID-card the citizen will receive personal @eesti.ee e-mail address, which is used by the state to send important information. In order to use the @eesti.ee e-mail address, the citizen have to forward it to his personal e-mail address using the State Portal eesti.ee.
Stored data
The card's chip stores digitised data about the authorised user, most importantly: the user's full name, gender, national identification number, and cryptographic keys and public key certificates.
Cryptographic use
The card's chip stores a key pair, allowing users to cryptographically sign digital documents based on principles of public key cryptography using DigiDoc. While it is possible also to encrypt documents using the card-holder's public key, this is used only infrequently, as such documents would become unreadable if the card were lost or destroyed.
By 27 May 2014, 160,809,440 electronic signatures were given, thus averaging to 10 signatures per card user per year.
Under Estonian law, since 15 December 2000 the cryptographic signature is legally equivalent to a manual signature.
Uses for identification
The card's compatibility with standard X.509 infrastructure has made it a convenient means of identification for use of web-based government services in Estonia (see e-Government). All major banks, many financial and other web services support ID-card based authentication.
Web discussion forums
Web commentary columns of some Estonian newspapers, most notably Eesti Päevaleht, used to support ID-card based authentication for comments. This approach caused some controversy in the internet community.
Public transport
Larger cities in Estonia, such as Tallinn and Tartu, have arrangements making it possible for residents to purchase "virtual" transportation tickets linked to their ID cards.
Period tickets can be bought online via electronic bank transfer, by SMS, or at public kiosks. This process usually takes less than a few minutes and the ticket is instantly active from the moment of purchase.
Customers also have the option of requesting e-mail or SMS notification alerting them when the ticket is about to expire, or of setting up automatic renewal through internet banking services.
To use the virtual ticket, customers must carry their ID card with them whenever they use public transport. During a routine ticket check, users are asked to present their ID card, which is then inserted into a special device. This device then confirms that the user holds a valid ticket, and also warns if the ticket is about to expire. The ticket check usually takes less than a second.
Ticket information is stored in a central database, not on the ID card itself. Thus, to order a ticket, it is not necessary to have an ID-card reader. Ticket controllers have access to a local archive of the master database. If the ticket was purchased after the local archive was updated, the ticket device is able to confirm the ticket from the master database over GSM data link.
Electronic voting
The Estonian ID card is also used for authentication in Estonia's ambitious Internet-based voting programme.
In February 2007, Estonia was the first country in the world to institute electronic voting for parliamentary elections. Over 30 000 voters participated in the country's e-election. In the Parliamentary election of 2011 140,846 votes were cast electronically representing 24% of total votes.
The software used in this process is available for Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X and Linux.
Use as a travel document
Since Estonia's accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004, Estonian citizens who possess an Estonian identity card have been able to use it as an international travel document, in lieu of a passport, for travel within the EU countries and also to Albania, Andorra, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Iceland, Liechtenstein, Macedonia, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, San Marino, Serbia, Switzerland and Vatican City.
However, non-Estonian citizens resident in Estonia are unable to use their Estonian identity cards as an international travel document, except that EU/EEA citizens can use cards issued since 3 September 2007 for traveling inside the Schengen area.