Imagine being able to purchase a phone plan or private health insurance securely online without having to provide multiple documents to prove who you are — or worry your identity could be stolen later on.
Estonia — a small Baltic nation bordering Russia — gave its residents the ability to do just that about 20 years ago when it introduced a single, secure digital ID that could be used to authenticate their identity when accessing government and private services.
Carmen Raal — the digital transformation adviser at government agency e-Estonia — told the ABC its eID's electronic signatures had become virtually ubiquitous.
