Can NZ become the digital Estonia of the Pacific?
Estonia has become a tech utopia. In advance of New Zealand hosting a conference of the most digitally-savvy countries, Philip Matthews wonders what we can learn from the tiny Baltic state’s innovations.
How often do you think about Estonia? Chances are, not that often. But for some in the technology world, the word ‘‘Estonia’’ has taken on the shape of Utopia.
The tiny state on the Baltic Sea has a population smaller than greater Auckland and much larger countries – Finland and Russia – to the north and east. The capital is called Tallinn. So much for the pub quiz questions.
The point about Estonia is that it radically reinvented itself after decades of Soviet rule, when ethnic Russians were imported in large numbers, Estonians were deported and its main use was as a base for the Soviet navy. The Soviets were eventually seen off in something called the ‘‘Singing Revolution’’, as Tonu Loorparg, New Zealand’s honorary consul of Estonia, explains.
‘‘I was there in 1989 when things were really coming unstuck,’’ Loorparg says. ‘‘When there was no food in the shops. They were pulling down statues of Lenin and Stalin all over the place.’’
Loorparg, who normally goes by ‘‘Tony’’ not Tonu, came to New Zealand as a World War II refugee but stayed in touch with the old country. Its technological advances have made that easier. Skype was created by Estonians, as was the file-sharing programme Kazaa, and Loorparg suspects that when his nephew first Skyped him from Estonia back in about 2004, that made him one of the earliest users of it in New Zealand.
So, what happened? The new Minister for Government Digital Services, Clare Curran, has been keeping an eye on Estonia. Back in 1991, when it became independent, less than half the population had a telephone line.
‘‘Reportedly its only independent link to the outside world was a Finnish mobile phone hidden in the foreign minister’s garden,’’ Curran says. ‘‘Now it is a world leader in technology.’’
Estonia became the first country to allow online voting in a general election – that was in 2007. In the same year, it so effectively fought off a Russian cyber attack that Nato shifted its cyber-security headquarters there. It has fast broadband speeds and the record for start-ups per person, as well as the lowest business tax rates in the European Union and light regulation. It leapt from having no land registry to having a paperless one.
Health records live in the cloud. Justice is streamlined by technology. Online tax returns take five minutes. There is transparency and buy-in. Citizens and e-residents can log into their records and see who last looked. No matter if it was a bureaucrat, your GP or the police, you get to know.
All the normal services of Government are linked across one platform, accessed by an ID card. The Government data platform, X Road, links servers through encrypted pathways, with private firms also on the network.
Government becomes both allpervasive and invisible. They call it e-Estonia.
In New Zealand, we might ask a different question: we think of ourselves as innovative and boutique, but can we be Estonia?
Estonia had the advantage of starting from scratch after winning independence, Curran says. ‘‘Unlike the Estonians, we are not able to design a whole new government system from the ground up. Our digital transformation must take place within the existing government structures we have.’’
There are other differences, Curran explains.
‘‘Estonia has a ‘once only’ policy, meaning that no piece of citizen information should be given to government more than once. This ‘tell me once’ concept is one New Zealand is looking at, but the Privacy Act provides some constraints on this.
There may also be trust and privacy questions. Does this lead to a surveillance state, and if so, is it worse than Facebook and Google hoovering up personal data? Would New Zealanders be comfortable with so much data being stored and shared?
Curran cites a 2016 Privacy Commission Survey that showed 65 per cent of us continue to be concerned about privacy, and 46 per cent have become more concerned about individual privacy issues over the past few years. Between 75 and 81 per cent were concerned about issues relating to identity theft, credit card and banking details, businesses sharing personal information and security of information.
Curran believes our privacy laws are outdated and inadequate and will overhaul them in collaboration with Statistics Minister James Shaw.
There has been a lot of attention on Estonia’s ‘‘E-residency’’, which allows non-citizens to sign up as virtual citizens online. The consulate has not exactly been flooded with New Zealand applicants – Loorparg says he has just one E-resident on the go. But the idea is fascinating as it takes the internet’s non-geographical communities to a new level.
How about online voting? The Estonians have done it for a decade. New Zealand could see a trial as soon as the 2019 local elections or future by-elections. But there is a philosophical hurdle to get over.
‘‘In theory, it can be done,’’ says Graeme Muller, chief executive of NZ Tech, which acts as an intermediary between tech companies and the Government. ‘‘But there is just something fundamentally different about electing a government versus going online and ordering the groceries. That’s a national debate that needs to be had.’’
But is the Estonian model a cultural fit for us? Or do we fear a Big Brother world in which everything is handed over to faceless technologies? Muller suspects it is much easier to ‘‘do things like make everyone have an ID card and put all the information on that card’’ if you come out of decades of Eastern Bloc totalitarianism.
‘‘While we will probably never be an Estonia, because none of us will ever put our hand up and say we want the Government to control everything, we will learn from it and see the opportunities and benefits that can come from better use of the data,’’ Muller says.
Loorparg sees it differently. He thinks the new Estonia’s tech culture is contrary to decades of totalitarianism rather than a sequel to it. He remembers the Soviet towers that jammed radio signals in Tallinn, ‘‘the KGB constantly surveying those who were politically incorrect’’. This is not that.
‘‘The fact that this has been accepted to the degree that it has is quite amazing,’’ Loorparg says. ‘‘Therein lies a lesson for New Zealanders. If you use the right technology, there is no conflict between Big Brother spying and privacy. The power is in the hands of the individual.’’
Different countries have different specialities based on their contexts, Muller says. Estonia showed how to build a digital republic with a small population in a short time. Israel has become expert at cybersecurity and cherrypicks talent from compulsory military training intakes. Singapore is ‘‘doing amazing things’’ in government and technology, but has a less democratic set-up.
Go overseas and you find that some are even talking about us, he says. A few have noticed how New Zealand uses technology in education. Services like passports and births, deaths and marriages have become more rapid.
‘‘You’ve got the Data Futures Partnership, which is outside the Government but working with the Government to free up as much Government data as possible for the development of services and for transparency.’’
It seems to be a well-kept secret in the local tech sector that New Zealand is also a member of the D5, short for Digital 5. Representatives of five nations gather to talk about digital government issues. There is blue sky thinking, pushing of envelopes. Besides us, it involves the UK, Israel, South Korea and, of course, Estonia.
Wellington gets to host the next D5 summit in February, preceded by a two-day Digital Nations conference in Auckland. Muller, whose group is organising the conference, pitches ‘‘a unique opportunity to bring together New Zealand’s digital leaders, with international experts, business leaders, societal change agents and policy makers to envision what New Zealand could look like as a digital nation by 2030, and then agree on investments and policy to help us get there’’.‘‘If we have a more connected nation, there is more opportunity for flowing education and knowledge into areas that may be lagging behind,’’ Muller says. ‘‘At a simple level, we don’t want to leave 20 per cent of our population behind.’’
Otherwise we risk a society of haves and have nots that excludes unconnected people on low incomes, the elderly and those in remote areas.
‘‘With the internet and connectivity, you get more women involved, a more educated population, people learn more, they start more businesses, they sell to people around the world.’’
‘‘Estonia has a ‘once only’ policy, meaning that no piece of citizen information should be given to government more than once.’’
The new Minister for Government Digital Services, Clare Curran