

Estonia's e-residency program expands abroad - Sami_Lehtinen
https://e-estonia.com/e-residents/apply-2/

======
octaveguin
I recently applied for an Estonian e-residency. Heres what I did:

The first thing to know is that you have to physically be there to apply. I
went to Estonia and applied at the local police station. I know that sounds
weird but thats how you do it. In Estonia, this is where you go to renew
driver's licenses and a lot of governmental things.

It was relatively painless. I didn't need to make an appointment. It's just
like a DMV. You take a ticket and wait. The woman behind the counter asks some
questions, for your passport, biometrics (photo and finger prints) and 50
euros. You then you wait to hear a response within two weeks.

An annoying part is that you have to show up again in two weeks to pick it up
in person. Mine is still waiting for me in Estonia as I've not been back yet
and I can't have a friend pick it up for me (it has to be me!).

Be prepared to spend two weeks in Tallinn, therefore, which isn't bad as the
prices are quite reasonable and the food is good.

~~~
ProblemFactory
From the linked website, it seems that they expanded applications to overseas
embassies a few days ago, so visiting in person might no longer be necessary.

Out of curiosity, what was your motivation for applying? It seems to me that
the only obvious use-case for e-residency is to run a company registered in
Estonia while living elsewhere.

~~~
octaveguin
Yes it seems like it'll be easier now. Exciting really. I bet a lot of people
will now take advantage of it.

My motivation is eventual real residency. This just makes it easier.

~~~
mb_72
I'm not sure there is any path, now or planned for the future, for moving from
e-residency to 'real residency'. Probably you've seen this information, but if
not: [http://www.investinestonia.com/en/investment-guide/coming-
to...](http://www.investinestonia.com/en/investment-guide/coming-to-estonia)

------
coretx
The Estonian system is incredibly insecure. Not only because of legal and
procedural errors, but also because of technical issues.

Some references: [https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/ivoting-
ccs14.pdf](https://jhalderm.com/pub/papers/ivoting-ccs14.pdf) ( Lookup the ID-
card part. ) [http://www.wassenaar.org/](http://www.wassenaar.org/) ( Crypto
is defined as a "dual use" weapon. )

The worst aspect of the estonian ID-card is simply the fact that your private
key is not private, and stored in the card itself. You as a user, can not
revoke or resign it. At the same time however, it holds full legal status and
dominion over your identity.

~~~
jkaljundi
Rather read [http://estonianworld.com/security/attacks-estonias-e-
voting-...](http://estonianworld.com/security/attacks-estonias-e-voting-
political-rather-technical/) and [https://www.ria.ee/e-voting-is-too-
secure/](https://www.ria.ee/e-voting-is-too-secure/)

~~~
ottodv
Two sources with absolutely no pro-Estonian bias. </sarc>

------
Buetol
I thought of a simple solution to the verifiability problem, what do you think
?

\- When voting, each voter receive a receipt with a random number assigned to
his vote

\- All the votes are published with the random numbers alongside them

\- Each voter can verify that his vote was correctly saved by looking at his
assigned number in the list

It's not perfect but relying on a central server is far worse I think (like
the paper said)

~~~
aianus
Unfortunately this enables someone to coerce or bribe you into voting for a
certain candidate, since the coercer would be able to demand to see your
receipt and verify you complied.

Here's a rather long but very interesting tech talk about electronic voting
schemes which maintain the secret ballot property:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDnShu5V99s](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZDnShu5V99s)

~~~
Buetol
Thanks, I looked a bit at the Helios voting system and thought it was a
complicated mess but this video explains everything really well!

------
zkhalique
What is the advantage of e-residency in estonia?

~~~
krick
I double that. Honestly, I expected that somebody already explained it in
comments. Before reading so detailed and in-depth explanation on "how?" I
would expect broad and self-selling explanation of "why?".

~~~
jcrawfordor
The program appears to be oriented towards people who regularly visit Estonia
or do business with Estonians. The Estonian ID card is used for authentication
to many (perhaps all) Estonian government services and some private services,
so it would be inconvenient to e.g. owe taxes there and not have an Estonian
e-ID.

------
genesem
Could someone expalin _why_ this is needed? so much hustles for such thing.

~~~
octaveguin
It makes it easier to start a business, open a bank account, and things like
that in Estonia. That's important because it's an EU country with a reasonable
tax system, stable government and an overall ease of doing business. Being
part of the EU makes a lot of things easier in dealings with other countries
depending on your line of work.

That's the theory anyway. We'll see if it pans out.

Personally, it's an important step for me in getting a real residency beyond
one tied to a company that isn't my own in the EU.

------
zura
Interesting, would it be possible to create a Google Play Store merchant
account with this? Estonia is in the list of supported countries for
merchants.

------
joelrunyon
Does anyone know what obligations the e-residency program you have to submit
to?

~~~
polymatter
I couldn't find any obligations. Its probably a good idea to keep your PIN
secure to reduce the probability of ID fraud. As far as I can tell its a state
backed digital signature and authentication system so wouldn't confer any
obligations.

However, there is some discussion about whether its a completely new legal
status which would do things like make you liable for double taxation.
Personally I find that highly unlikely, but IANAL, YMMV etc.

~~~
joelrunyon
> However, there is some discussion about whether its a completely new legal
> status which would do things like make you liable for double ta

Yeah, that was the type of obligation I was referring to.

------
kaspa130
fyi, how to apply: 1.april Estonia opened foreign embassies where you can give
paper application. But from May Estonia opens online application where you can
pay by credit card. And once you got accepted then you need to physically go
and collect the card from your chosen foreign embassy. everything here
[https://e-estonia.com/e-residents/about/](https://e-estonia.com/e-residents/about/)

Why one should? yes, access to EU market, access to good services (google,
paypal, soon stripe etc), access to e-banking, and generally digital signature
gives hassle-free business environment (signing contracts with partners,
filling e-tax declarations, administrating business on a business portal).

Why Estonia is doing it - to increase its economic reach / gain more customers
/ PR

------
exit
has anyone found a translation of the application document?

[https://www.politsei.ee/dotAsset/204085.pdf](https://www.politsei.ee/dotAsset/204085.pdf)

------
raverbashing
Can someone fix the title? It should be residency (like in the website)

