by Karina Egipt, Nortal's Head of eID concept, June 7, 2017
In the context of skyrocketing numbers of mobile workers, competition between governments to attract the best people is also set to rise. Electronic identity is one way a country can score points in this race.
Today, out of 3.5 billion people working around the world on a daily basis, 1.5 billion are mobile workers. Globalization will continue to drive growth in mobile workers and according to Strategy Analytics, numbers will increase to 1.75 billion within three years. By 2022, more than 40% of the global workforce will be mobile.
A lot has been said and written about millennials, many of whom lead a mobile lifestyle, hopping countries faster than any previous generation. Just recently, Nortal’s CEO Priit Alamäe said that in the long run, countries that get talented people to stay put, will be the winners. The success of governments in attracting the right people to stay longer than six months will depend on their willingness to re-engineer systems to deliver efficient and cost-effective services with the smallest possible administrative burden.
Today, people live in a fast-changing world where the flow of information, ideas, and knowledge across the globe is having a profound impact on the way the world functions. Governments worldwide are faced with the challenge of this transformation and the need to reinvent public systems to deliver efficient and cost-effective services, information and knowledge through information and communication technologies.
Nobody wants to queue for hours to file their taxes, create a company or name their baby. People want easy, seamless processes when it comes to communicating with the state. They’ll want to live in countries where their government treats them a valued client.
A key enabler in this transformation is the implementation of electronic identities – an essential component of infrastructure upon which the future of e-government and private e-services will be built. A unique electronic ID with full capacity to make legally binding actions online – anywhere, anytime – provides a huge advantage for people, companies, and governments alike.
Estonia first issued ID-cards more than 15 years ago. During those years, almost 400 million legally binding digital signatures have been given in a country with a population of 1.3 million. Today, e-ID has evolved so that you can sign contracts, vote in elections and authenticate yourself with your mobile phone. A new Smart-ID, independent of your mobile phone’s SIM-card, was recently implemented and already has more than 200,000 users in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
Nortal has been part of that process and today we are happy to help other countries implement their own electronic identities. It is our core purpose to realize meaningful advances by building seamless societies. For example, recently we assisted the Dubai government in setting up the vision and roadmap for a next-generation electronic identity and signature solution.