"virtual resident" and everything else that is related to the new phenomenon.
Who?
In October, the Estonian Parliament approved a Bill to allow any foreigner to get e-citizenship. Jokes about slow Estonians, can be, and funny, but not in this case. From 1 December, Estonia will officially become the first State in the world, where the issue of e-citizenship are already reality, and not a thing of dreams and endless parliamentary discourses.
Why?
Thus, Estonia wants to attract businessmen and foreign capital in their own economy. E-citizenship, which can now get almost anyone to open access to a wide range of digital services: record company on the Baltic Sea is not the issue, open accounts in local banks, please, pay taxes and sign documents-as long as you want.
Everything can be done quickly (as stated in the Bill, less than 20 minutes), and most importantly — from anywhere in the world. However, electronic document will not travel to other countries or to visit the Estonia. But it is yet.
How to get?
"E-citizenship can be granted to an individual associated with Estonia, or the person interested in the use of Estonian digital services or obtaining an electronic signature", as stated in the explanatory memorandum to the Bill. To obtain the coveted ID card with a microchip (this is the "e-citizen") , you must:
- 50 euros;
- visit Estonia and apply for e-citizenship (it is planned that in 2015, all this can be done in Estonian embassies around the world, including Russia and Ukraine);
- take fingerprints.
And that's all. You are the lucky owner of an Estonian citizenship.
The prospects of e-citizenship
For the first time Estonia stated project to create a special online infrastructure for the e-citizenship back in the early 1990 's. In 2005, the Government of the country was the first to legalize the electronic vote in municipal, parliamentary, presidential and other public elections.
Today in Estonia is a system of electronic identification cards, which must receive all citizens over the age of 15 years. ID not just identity but also provides citizens access to online gosuslugam, health insurance, bank accounts and other services. In 2013, the 95% of tax returns filed via the Internet in Estonia, and 85 per cent of the population regularly used online banks. These figures far exceed the EU average. In accordance with the Government's plan to 2025 year e-cards get residents of Estonia to 10 million people. By comparison, today's population is less than 1.4 million people.
The Estonian example ended up in a sort of contagious. So, for example, a project of such online infrastructure started to recreate in Finland. Among other things, a cooperation agreement between Tallinn and Helsinki was signed with an electronic signature. It is possible that the Estonian model will work in all the countries of the old world. The European Parliament must adopt a law obliging the European Union take a digital ID card to each other.
Business Russian
In Russia there is an analogue of the Estonian ID-card. Universal electronic card or UEK is a material carrier, where graphics and electronic form contains information about the user: name, surname, date of birth, photo, sex, SNILS, JMS, data, e-banking application, and (at the request of the citizen) electronic signature.
With the Russian maps of the owner will be able to pay for purchases, State services, fines, and taxes, use the services of a notary, to apply for the passport queue to a doctor and even monitor the child's progress in school. It is noteworthy that the UEK, unlike Estonian ID-card is issued free of charge. Such a map exists in Russian realities since mid-2010, but the popularity of the citizens and not syskala.