Under current law, all Estonian people must have an ID-card. Those who wish may also apply for a passport. In a draft law published in January, the Ministry of the Interior proposed more lenient rules, allowing individuals to choose whether they want a passport, an ID-card or both.

Elen Kraavik, adviser for the ministry's border and migration policy department, told ERR that mobile solutions are increasingly being used instead of the ID-card. "All e-services have gone mobile. Computers often don't even have an ID-card reader," Kraavik said, suggesting that the physical ID-card is cumbersome today.

She added that while the ID-card needs to be replaced every five years, a passport is valid for up to ten years. The Ministry of the Interior believes that if a person no longer needs an ID-card, they should not be required to apply for one.

Madis Tapupere, head of digital state technologies at the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications, however, stated that the ID-card has been the foundation of Estonia's digital state.

"Historically, the fact that the ID-card was mandatory allowed for a critical mass of usage, which propelled the entire success story of Estonia's digital state," Tapupere said.

Since mobile-ID solutions are also voluntary, the change would eliminate any obligation for electronic ID.

"Quite a few institutions and private companies have been able to build their processes on the assumption that electronic communication is their first choice," Tapupere stated.

MKM does not believe number of ID-card applicants would fall much

Currently, approximately 840,000 people in Estonia have a citizen's passport, and 1.1 million have an ID-card. Mobile-ID is used by 244,000 people, and nearly 700,000 people use Smart-ID.

According to Elen Kraavik, the Ministry of the Interior recently conducted an online survey, which revealed that some people would still apply for an ID-card even if it were no longer mandatory.

She said that the legal change would also be necessary for those, mainly older people, who do not use a digital identity card anyway. She noted that their ID-cards could be maliciously exploited.

"People gain access to bank accounts and take out loans without the cardholder's knowledge because they are unaware of all that can be done with an ID-card," Kraavik explained. "For the protection of these people, they will have the option in the future to apply not for an ID-card, but for a passport."

The Estonian Association of Information Technology, which brings together IT companies, believes that the ID-card should remain mandatory for people. The association's policy and legal affairs head Keilin Tammepärg said that vulnerable groups could be protected with better explanatory work.

"In our opinion, it is definitely a step back if there are fewer people in Estonia with a digital identity," Tammepärg noted.

Interior ministry: Having more electronic identities contributes to security

Madis Tapupere also highlighted that under the e-identification and e-transaction regulation being finalized in the European Union mobile-ID will soon lose its power, meaning it will no longer be able to be used for digital signatures. After the decline of mobile-ID, Smart-ID will remain, but Tapupere argues that one digital identity is not enough.

"The ID-card is somewhat in a special status. It serves as a backup ID for instances when, for example, a person's other ID is locked or lost. Or when the entire infrastructure is not working," Tapupere explained.

The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications pointed out that both Smart-ID and mobile-ID depend on the certification center's infrastructure. However, the ID-card solution is built differently.

"When we had the ID-card crisis, it was also concluded that it is good for citizens to have multiple different electronic IDs," said Tapupere.

Elen Kraavik agreed that the ID-card and mobile-ID solutions offer alternatives to each other. However, she noted that all current solutions are linked to a single company, SK-Solutions. "And in the event of a major crisis, people can quickly apply for an ID-card," Kraavik added.

Rules will not be changed before the arrival of the digital wallet

The Ministry of the Interior proposed eliminating the ID-card requirement in the same draft law that creates the possibility to display documents in the upcoming mRiik (mState) mobile application. The Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications initially stated that it could only support the rest of the draft law if its concerns regarding the ID-card were addressed.

A compromise was recently reached. Thus, the amendment will have a longer transition period, associated with the emergence of an entirely new ID solution, namely the digital wallet. The creation of the digital wallet is mandated for all Member States by the same European Union regulation that removes the signing power from Estonia's mobile-ID.

"We should get started with the creation of such a wallet as a country as soon as possible," Kraavik said. "And if we can start fairly soon, then in about two to two and a half years, we could have such a new e-ID tool available. And that would also be the transition deadline when we could give people the option to choose between an ID-card or a passport," Kraavik added.

"This would allow us to ensure that we have another functioning national ID available," Madis Tapupere agreed with the compromise.

What exactly the digital wallet will look like is still uncertain. "But the principle is that people would have a mobile app that allows them to authenticate themselves in e-services, give a high-level e-signature, and to which they can add various types of certificates, such as a driver's license, travel document, university diploma and so on," Kraavik explained.

While the digital wallet is still a few years away, the mRiik app is expected to be ready by this summer, according to the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications.

Although the mRiik app also allows people to display an identity document, Kraavik believes that the two applications cannot replace each other: "mRiik is more like a reflection of the eesti.ee portal. The solution for displaying an identity document is built entirely differently there," said Kraavik.

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