Opening Remarks: Championing Digital Democracy for All

Thank you all for being here. Good morning. I must admit it's fairly awkward to be following myself. As I speak on the screen version of me and the real version of me, you get to pick which one you like best. I want to thank New America for hosting us this morning here in Washington.

Obviously, thank you to all cohort members, especially the co-chairs the United Kingdom and Access Now for the great work we've done together and the results we've provided. I do want to show you again that our work will continue. I also want to thank the United States for the leadership for bringing the democracies of the world together in an era where democracies, and democracy itself, will be challenged.

As a European country, I need to remind you all of the fact that this challenge is nowhere more acute and visible today than in Ukraine. This is what is at stake—their democracy, the fate of it, and whether or not we will be able to defend every democracy in the world.

We in Estonia believe that technology can play a huge role in strengthening democracy. I'm obviously biased, but I know no better story to prove that than the Estonian story.

In 1991, when we regained our independence, we had nothing—security-wise, economy-wise, technology-wise. Most Estonian homes did not have a phone connection. During the occupation, we didn't get free TV coverage in Estonia. In 30 short years, we've managed to build a country that ranks at the top of most respected democracy rankings - from media freedom to the stability of democracy. We're usually in the top 10, sometimes in the top five.

Technology has played a huge role in our success story—not innovative technology, but the use of technology in innovative ways. Most of the technology our e-government uses, or the Estonian e-society uses, is off-the-shelf technology. It's the innovative way we use technology that has made our success story possible.

There are two critical building blocks in our story that I find to be most important.

First, is the so-called Estonian X-road secure data highway that makes information exchange between different government entities, but also between the private sector and the government, possible. Secure here being the key word, and not only from a technological perspective, but also from a philosophical political perspective. Estonian citizens are owners of their data, making the system trusted and secure from that perspective.

And second, it is our trusted digital government issued ID that makes it possible for you to be certain that you are recognized as you when interacting with the government or private businesses online. That has allowed us to reach a point today where we do our taxes every year in a few minutes, where pretty much all government services are offered digitally online. There is no DMV line in Estonia, right? You don't ever go to the DMV. This is all online. It's digital. We vote online and count our votes in minutes. All of this obviously saves us a lot of money. We calculate roughly that we save approximately 2% of our GDP simply because of the digital signature, which is a legally binding digital signature and the paper saved, the time saved. No contract is signed on paper. Saves us time, saves us money.

But my point here is that it also makes democracy stronger in many ways. I'll highlight three key ones.

First, it makes government more transparent, and transparency is a key building block for a secure democracy.

Second, technology makes our democracy more transparent and it helps us fight corruption. You cannot bribe a computer. The more automated the government processes, the more likely it is that you will be doing your business with the government from your home through a screen. There are less people that could possibly, or at least in theory, ask for a bribe.

And finally, last but certainly not least, it makes voting accessible. We just had parliamentary elections in Estonia for the first time in our history. Most votes cast in parliamentary elections were cast online, from people's homes, or cars, or the beach, from abroad, from the office, on a laptop, on a tabletop, by almost any device from anywhere.

Most votes cast were cast digitally. You know who cares about that? Usually, you'd think the young people are more tech savvy. That's to a certain extent true. The youth vote was overwhelmingly digital. But also those who have difficulty getting to the polling stations—the elderly, people with disabilities, people who have relatives with disabilities and have to take care of them, people who work on shifts, people who cannot for some reason be in country, maybe they work overseas during elections. For them, our democracy is as accessible as for those who get to take a free day on the actual voting day.

So we believe our story proves that if used wisely, technology can indeed strengthen democracy. I want to again thank the cohort for the work that we collected to do in finding wise ways to use technology in strengthening our democracy. Thank you very much.