Receiving benefits and accepting digital services go hand in hand. All the efforts of country's governments or politicians to make changes towards digitalisation will not be successful, if the society is not convinced by the changes made or if the people refuse to back them up. Estonia's decision-makers and employees of the government see a few important points that need to be fulfilled when carrying out decisions and changes to the people.
Trust
The first fundamental behaviour by the government should be transparency in all its actions. Building trust is considered a complicated and tricky undertaking. However, for trust to vanish it can only take a few seconds or a single action.
"Usually how does it happen? If people realise that you have lied to them," Indrek Õnnik, Global Affairs Director of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and Communications of Estonia, said. "Sometimes it might seem that it's not the best idea to tell everything. But at the end of the day, the truth will prevail anyways. In the digital world, you will not be able to hide it."
Mari Krusten, Communication Manager at the e-Estonia Briefing Centre, offers a concrete example: In 2017 there was the potential risk of ID cards getting hacked. "That particular sort of situation is one of our success stories, especially communication wise, because the decision was made to not keep it a secret. It was immediately made public," Krusten said. "Everything was made super transparent. So people knew what was going on, where to go and what to do. And that was an excellent example of sort of how a government should quickly react."
Education
Another necessary step is to educate people before implementing a certain system or service.
"Before we started really providing digital services by the government, we started educating people about computers, so that they would be comfortable around computers, they would understand," Õnnik said. "A computer is so much more than just that typewriter with a screen."
Give incentives
Probably the most relevant actions to make citizens use online services are incentives.
To make the incentives more tangible, Õnnik mentioned a ticket for Tallinn's public transportation. People living in the city of Tallinn can get the ticket for free, but it is linked to the possession of the digital ID card. That makes the benefits of using technology directly visible. "It's always about thinking how to make people understand the benefits of not only saving time, but also saving money," Õnnik said.
That is also why - in order to make digital government services more popular - the services should not only be cheaper for the government to provide, but also cheaper to consume for the user.
It is the same for people's tax declarations. "If you tell someone that hey, if we go digital today, then in 40 years, when you retire, your retirement money will be bigger. Nobody cares. But if you tell them, if you do this right now, then tomorrow, you will have more money left in your pocket, people will care," Õnnik explained.
Avoid inconsistency
The need for consistency is strongly related to giving incentives.
"There's maybe some digital options, but they still have to send in paperwork, which makes no sense. And they're being frustrated."
With that statement Õnnik shows that inconsistency makes people frustrated and distrusting in digital transformation. Changes have to be radical and continuous. Otherwise it is another reason for people remaining sceptical about digital solutions.
In Estonia they also made the experience that changes are more effective when the solutions are compulsory instead of offered on an optional basis.
Affects a digitized society and state have on people's lives
An important question is how changes in the systems affect people's lives. In Estonia, they rarely have to show up in person at the authorities. Citizens need to leave the house for three other services besides picking up their ID cards: marriage, divorce, and buying real estate.
A barely seen privilege
It is not mainly that people feel huge changes in their daily lives because of the government's digital service. However, if the service is down for just a short time, citizens realize that a privilege is missing.
What a citizen can do with their e-identity:
Source: e-Estonia Briefing Centre
Access to government services
Due to the better accessibility of government services and the possibility of online voting, older people and those from the countryside are more involved in society.
"If we think about the bigger picture, then it actually helps people with limited mobility or accessibility to be more engaged in the government processes or procedures as well. Let's see democracy in that sense. Yes, they might not need government services on a daily basis after they already claimed for benefits." Õnnik said with regard to online voting, showing the importance of supporting democracy, even if it is not a matter of daily use but sometimes the only option.