10th anniversary of the issuing of the first ID card is marked. As of the beginning of 2012, 1.2 million people hold a valid ID card, of whom 85 percent are Estonian citizens and 15 percent foreign nationals. In ten years time, 72.6 million digital signatures have been given, and close to half of ID card holders have used the document electronically.
http://www.id.ee
The ICT Demo Centre, a joint project of Estonia’s ICT companies, turns three. The Centre was established to increase the profile of Estonia as an e-state on the international arena and to accelerate the export of local ICT services and experiences. http://e-estonia.com
Estonia sets a world record for participation in an electronic census. A total of 62 % of the population provides information for the Population and Housing Census online, beating Canada’s respective figure by eight percentage points. http://www.stat.ee/phc2011
February 2012
Public debate over copyright in the information age and the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) becomes more vocal in Estonia. An Estonian Internet freedom manifesto is developed in this period. The goal of the paper is to initiate discussion in society on the topic of fundamental rights of Internet users. http://mottehommik.praxis.ee/uued_teesid (in Estonian)
The Estonian Information Technology Foundation (EITSA) starts implementing a national programme on higher ICT education and research and development in the field. Its goal is to raise the quality of Estonia’s higher education in ICT as well as its international competitiveness and R&D capability in the field. http://www.eitsa.ee
March 2012
The Association of Information Technology and Telecommunications spearheads an “IT Night” where hundreds of active-minded young Estonians across the country come up with ideas how to make school life more exciting through IT. The event is part of the project designed to popularize IT specialities, called Kõik on IT, a play on words meaning literally, “Everything is IT”.
http://startit.ee/it-oo-2012-valminud-tood (in Estonian)
On 14 March, the Estonian ID card reaches 500,000 unique electronic users.
April 2012
Estonia joins the Open Government Partnership, aimed at supporting democracy, economic development and cooperation with NGOs.
http://www.opengovpartnership.org
A 3D virtual model of Old Town Tallinn is launched, allowing people to see the capital’s cultural sights and its food, drink and accommodations providers in a new way. http://3d.tallinn.ee
May 2012
The e-democracy conference “Demokraatia muutuste keerises” (Rapidly Changing Democracy) is held. Among other things, the conference discusses what constitutional democracy must be like in an information society and how people see their role in a democratic system. http://infoyhiskond.eesti.ee (in Estonian)
The Cabinet forms an Information Society Council, replacing the Estonian Informatics Council that has served since 1996, and updates its functions and composition. The council’s functions include presenting positions and advising the Cabinet in important matters pertaining to development of information society.
President Toomas Hendrik Ilves, the head of the European Union’s working group on e-health, presents an overview of the working group’s report, entitled “Redesigning health in Europe for 2020”. The working group led by the Estonian president includes healthcare experts, patients, representatives of medical, pharmaceutical and ICT industry, legal experts and policy makers from various countries.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/12/453&aged=0&language=EN&format=HTML&guiLanguage=en
June 2012
Estonian Public Broadcasting’s mobile app ERR is declared overall winner of the competition “Estonia’s best m-service 2012” and winner of the entertainment and media category. It can be used to access all Estonian Public Broadcasting livecasts of television and radio programming as well as access an on-demand archive.
http://www.m-konkurss.net/eng
In the framework of the EU Structural Funds programme “Raising Public Awareness about the Information Society“, the eGovernance Academy completes its guidelines for developing web-based communication at local governments. The guidelines focus above all on making use of existing technical solutions more effective, addressing both local governments’ service portals and social media platforms.
http://www.ega.ee/files/Soovitused%20kohalike%20omavalitsuste%20veebisuhtluse%20interaktiivsuse%20t%C3%B5stmiseks.pdf (in Estonian)
July 2012
An application round for funding projects aimed at making public data open to re-use is launched. Assistance is provided for transforming information systems so that information is available in machine-readable form over the Estonian open data site opendata.riik.ee. http://www.ria.ee/36610 (in Estonian)
The proposal to prepare the information society development plan 2020 enters the stage of consultations. The goal is to agree, in partnership with private and third sector, how to best use ICT to raise Estonia’s competitiveness and improve people’s well-being. http://ww.infoyhiskond.eesti.ee (in Estonian)
CHAPTER 1
OPEN DATA
No country in the world can afford to disregard the topic of open data. Such data has become a part of our everyday life – already now, public sector institutions generate various kinds of data in digital form – a tantalizing source of raw input for all sorts of new services and products. Open data refers to machine-readable data that is available to everyone to use freely and publicly, with no restrictions on use and distribution. In fact, Estonia’s Public Information Act obliges the public sector to make information available to the public either through websites, document registers or databases. This chapter looks at the topic of open data and the principles governing the domain both in Estonia and in other countries.
Open data – a step toward the Internet of the future
Uuno Vallner
Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications
The principle of open data and open government became buzzwords at the dawn of the 21st century. Since that time they have become areas that impact all of society. Open data is the first stage in moving toward the so-called Internet of Things and an interlinked world. Movement of data is seen as a way of dealing with “big data” in the future.
Here in Estonia, too, the goal could be a “linked Estonia” – an interoperable Estonian-ICT-deve-loped network of individuals, organizations, devices, knowledge, information systems and linked data. Creating it will require a breakthrough on such fronts as high-speed data networks and smart devices, interoperable information systems, knowledge networks, semantic networks, linked data, open government technologies (open standards and data, free software).
Open data for re-use
Public sector institutions generate, collect or retain a large quantity of data and information, such as statistics, spatial data, economic figures, environment data, archive materials, books and art collections. Today these resources are to a very great extent digitized and represent a major asset for development of new products and services where they are used as raw input. There is particular interest in re-use of dynamic data in public sector registers.
According to a study commissioned by the European Union1 if the public sector information in the EU’s 27 countries moves toward greater openness and easier access, it will be possible to achieve economic benefits translating into around 40 billion euros per year. The market for re-use in Europe is growing 7 to 40 percent a year. Vice-President of the European Commission Neelie Kroes has called open data “new gold”2: “If oil was black gold, re-use of data could be new gold for Europe.” Opening public sector data will allow the