Estonia to Trial Mobile ID App Based On Ukraine’s Diia

The government of Estonia is planning to pilot a mobile app based on Ukraine’s Diia system, as part of a larger cooperative agreement established between the two countries.

As The Baltic Times reports, the countries’ new cooperative agreement is focused on cybersecurity and digital transformation solutions. It was formally established in a meeting between Estonia’s Minister of Entrepreneurship and Information Technology, Kristjan Järvan, and Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s Deputy Prime Minister and the country’s Minister of Digital Transformation.

The agreement broadly entails sharing expertise on digital government and cybersecurity, with Estonia’s plan to develop an app based on Diia being a particularly noteworthy byproduct.

Already a pioneering effort when it was launched in 2020, Ukraine’s mobile ID app took on an even more important role in the wake of the Russian invasion earlier this year. In addition to serving as a digital identity document, Diia was rapidly upgraded to let Ukrainians use it to change their registered address, access cash subsidies, view remote work listings, and even submit tips about Russian military sightings to Ukraine’s military intelligence.

For its part, Estonia is a pioneer in e-government services, and, like Ukraine, it shares a border with Russia; so its interest in the Diia model is understandable. That having been said, there could be contractual hurdles. Estonia already has a “Mobile-ID” system provided by SK ID Solutions AS, and while the Estonian Information System Authority (RIA) launched a search for a new technology partner to upgrade the system last year, it ultimately renewed its contract with SK ID Solutions AS this past spring, on a five-year term.

That could ultimately pose a problem to any formal efforts to roll out a mobile ID system based on Diia, even if Estonia’s pilot proves successful. The country’s Entrepreneurship and Information Technology did not respond to a query about such potential contractual issues sent earlier this week.

Source: The Baltic Times