Abstract
This paper examines the possibilities of using the Estonian e-Governance infrastructure in an innovate manner to help displaced Estonian residents in a hypothetical national emergency. We begin by exploring the challenges that displaced persons and aid organizations face throughout three key stages of displacement – flight from conflict zones, temporary displacement, and long term integration. On this basis we analyze how the Estonian e-Governance infrastructure can be used in a refugee emergency. We provide a definition of intangible e-Governance infrastructure. We identify the key component of the existing Estonian e-Governance infrastructure as well as the proposed Governmental Cloud and Data Embassy initiatives. We analyze linkages where the utilization of the infrastructure could potentially counter the challenges of displaced persons and aid organizations. To realize these linkages, we propose a policy to make certain refugee-related, otherwise restricted governmental datasets accessible to international aid organizations. Additionally, we introduce a legal framework for the policy, analyze the technological requirements of its implementation, and discuss its communicational and technology export-related implications.
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Notes
- 1.
Throughout this work the term e-Citizen is used to refer to people who hold Estonian digital identification and profile: Estonian citizens, residents of Estonia, and Estonian e-residents.
- 2.
Digital profiles of e-Citizens maintained by the state differs from digital profiling carried out by social media providers such as Facebook, the latter not having the potential to be used to re-establish identities of displaced persons, since they are not verified by the state and carry no legal authenticity.
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Thurnay, L., Klasche, B., Nyman-Metcalf, K., Pappel, I., Draheim, D. (2017). The Potential of the Estonian e-Governance Infrastructure in Supporting Displaced Estonian Residents. In: Kő, A., Francesconi, E. (eds) Electronic Government and the Information Systems Perspective. EGOVIS 2017. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 10441. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-64248-2_17
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