“E-residency is a state-issued secure digital identity for non-residents that allows digital authentication and the digital signing of documents.
E-residency is provided by the government of the Republic of Estonia, but does not bring physical residency or rights of entry to Estonia or EU. E-residency does not entail any residential or citizen rights and cannot be used as a physical identification card or travel document.
The purpose of e-residency is to make life easier by using secure e-services that have been accessible to Estonians for years already. By providing e-residency, we are moving towards the idea of a country without borders.
E-residents receive a smart ID-card with a microchip (contact chip) that contains two certificates:
• Certificate for authentication
• Certificate for digital signatures
Digital authentication allows you to access different e-services (provided both by the public and private sector), and to log in to any online portals that recognize this type of authentication (such as internet banks, government portals etc). Digital authenticating requires you to enter a 4-digit PIN code, similar to your bank card.
Digital signing allows you to securely sign any type of documents from anywhere you are in the world, provided there is Internet access, with your 5-12 digit PIN code. Within EU, digital signatures are legally binding in all member states. Outside EU, digital signatures are legally binding in the case of mutual agreement between the parties….
General information about e-residency can be found here on a downloadable PDF“
OECD's Revised Guidelines on Privacy
OECD: “Over many decades the OECD has played an important role in promoting respect for privacy as a fundamental value and a condition for the free flow of personal data across borders. The cornerstone of OECD work on privacy is its newly revised Guidelines on the Protection of Privacy and Transborder Flows of Personal Data (2013).
Another key component of work in this area aims to improve cross-border co-operation among privacy law enforcement authorities. This work produced an OECD Recommendation on Cross-border Co-operation in the Enforcement of Laws Protecting Privacy in 2007 and inspired the formation of the Global Privacy Enforcement Network, to which the OECD provides support.
Other projects have examined privacy notices and considered privacy in the context of horizontal issues such as radio frequency indentification (RFID), digital identity management, and looked at metrics to inform policy making in these areas. The important role of privacy is also addressed in the OECD Recommendation on Principles for Internet Policy Making (2011) and the Seoul Ministerial Declaration on the Future of the Internet Economy (2008).
Current work is examining privacy-related issues raised by large-scale data use and analytics. It is part of a broader project on the data-driven innovation and growth, which already produced a preliminary report identifying key issues.”