Baltic Security in a Global Context: Challenges, and Collaborations

Episode 2. The Baltics: Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia – An overview.

Estonia – A Digital State Model

Known for being one of the most advanced countries in the field of digitization in Europe, Estonia’s digital state infrastructure has appeared as a model for European countries, eager to follow its example, with digital transformation counting now among EU key priorities. The country bet in the end of the 1990s on the development of a fully digitalized society. It sought to create a paperless administrative system that would enable citizens to access government services with only a few clicks, thus resulting in a considerable time saving and growing efficiency of the state administration.

This bet proved to be fruitful with 99% of the country’s administrative services being digitalized – stretching from healthcare, finances, police or notary services to the so–called most challenging moments of an individual life, such as weddings, birth registrations or funeral services. Additionally, the creation in 2014 of Estonia’s e-residency program constituted another layout of the country’s digital transformation. Anyone wishing to open a company in Estonia without ever physically entering the country was now able do so and was granted a digital identity allowing the access to all state digital services – the same way as Estonian citizens.  Such an innovation has provoked a major international success, with countries such as Lithuania deciding to launch their own “e-government” and “e- residency” programs thereafter.

While Estonia’s digital success has been widely assessed, a recent topic of discussion lies in Lithuania’s rapid progression in the field of digitization, and more broadly, on the Baltics' pioneering role in Europe regarding this matter. How does this progression look like concretely? And how do Lithuania and Latvia position themselves compared to their Estonian neighbour in their path towards digitization? This article aims to provide an overview of the state of digitization in the Baltics, looking at online voting developments and at education as a key factor to ensure cybersecurity.  

e-Voting

The implementation of internet voting in Estonia dates back to 2005 – when it became the first country to hold legally binding elections over the Internet. After the conduct of a successful pilot study held in Tallinn in January, followed by the ratification of the Local Government Council Election Amendment Act in September, Internet voting was used for the first time at the local level for the country’s municipal elections, and reached the national level for the 2007 legislative elections. On March 2023, during last parliamentary elections, Estonia attracted for the first time a higher number of votes casted via the Internet, with 51 percent of online vote shares. This percentage of internet participation bears witness to the level of public confidence in Estonia's digital system - what can raise questions on the possibility of referring to this method at a larger scale in Europe.

In Lithuania, the implementation of internet voting is under discussion for several years now, with first debates held in 2006. On the one side, there are those advocating for its development, seeing it as a natural component of the country's digital transformation. They see it both as a way to increase voters' turnout and facilitate vote counting - a topic that resonated in the context of the COVID 19 pandemic, with discussions regarding the legalization of online voting for citizens abroad. However this did not engage in any further step on the matter. On the other side of the debate, the approach towards online voting is more cautious, as shown in Lithuania's Central Electoral Commission feasibility study published in June 2024, on the adoption of an online voting information system in the country. The report advocates for the delay of its development until the associated social and technological risks can be sufficiently mitigated. The main argument for such a stance lies in the vulnerability of Lithuania's digital system against the risk of malign interference aimed at influencing the voting process. Associated to it is the risk of potential data leakage with the issue of how to ensure strict anonymity while voting on the Internet.

In comparison, the successful online voting procedure in Estonia can be explained by Estonia’s long digital processes, with a state digital infrastructure relying on two innovations, enabling the development of digital services in various fields in a safer, quicker and more affordable way.

First, the creation in 2001 of a state issued digital identity or so called e-ID for each citizen, (followed by the creation of an e-signature in 2016 attached to it). Second, the adoption, the same year, of the so-called X-Road technology. This distributed information system enables the exchange of data between society public organizations on an easily accessible and single secured platform. In this context, the development of a fully digital state with its digital citizens gave a strong basis for online voting to function, with IT systems becoming a central part of Estonians’ daily lives. This helped citizens to build trust in their system over the years - a feature still judged to weak among Lithuania’s public opinion, but necessary to make online voting possible.

In Latvia, the topic of e-voting - which also attracted public debate - is not at the agenda. What has recently been discussed is the counting of votes by electronic scanning of ballot papers. The creation of clearer ballot papers for the next municipal elections in summer 2025 in order to ensure efficient electronic voting in the future will be examined by the Latvian Parliament Saeima in the upcoming months. 

Cybersecurity - Education as a Key Priority

Another important aspect is the issue of cybersecurity. In a context of accelerate digitization in Europe, what about the risks of betting on fully digital infrastructures? How to protect them against the threat of growing cyberattacks?

While Lithuania recorded an encouraging decrease of 26% in registered cybercrime in 2023 compared to 2022, the number of cyberattacks has been multiplied by four in Estonia since February 2022 and Latvia is the second EU member, after Poland, having the highest number of cyberattacks.

To strengthen their cybersecurity, Baltic countries have engaged in various steps. Last on the list was the transposition of the EU NIS2 Directive into their national law - a directive aimed at achieving a uniformly high level of cybersecurity across the EU. The deadline was fixed for October 17 this year. While Lithuania and Latvia successfully managed to implement it one time, Estonia communicated very little information on that matter. It is still in the process of drafting the legislation to incorporate the EU directive into its national law. This might take some time, as the draft needs then to be approved by the Estonian Parliament Riigikogu, before entering into force.

However, a priority in each Baltic States’ agenda lies in digital education. As ensuring cybersecurity is becoming increasingly complex, with attacks becoming more clever and targeted, there is a need for more specialised workers in the field. To cite one example, the use of cutting-edges technologies such as AI or machine learning is now part of criminals’ strategy to reach their target effectively. Having professionals - and a sufficient number - capable to work with and adapt to the development of these new technologies is thus becoming a priority. In this context education plays a decisive role.

In Estonia, the focus on education is part of a long-term strategy and was already visible in the country’s early stages of digital development. Back to the end of 1990s - early 2000s, the government launched several programs aimed to provide Internet access and computers to all schools, basic IT knowledge for teachers and to introduce students to digital technologies. It then integrated digital competencies in Estonian school programs in 2014 and sought to digitalize all educational materials a year later - a path towards digital education that Lithuania and Latvia aim to follow.

To face the lack of specialised workers, Estonia launched for example in 2012 its ProgeTiger program. The aim is to encourage teachers to make greater use of digital technologies and initiate students to this topic. To this end, a wide range of courses and trainings have been provided, including programming, robotics or 3D technology. Today, according to the 2023 last Estonia’s digital report, its number of ICT specialists is higher than the EU average and it is very likely to increase over the next years. Nonetheless, due to the rapid complexification of digitization, there is a growing demand for ICT experts. As such, Estonia launched several initiatives. Among them retraining and upskilling programmes for people without previous training in the field or e-services development training programmes in 2023.

In Lithuania, according to the last Lithuania’s digital report, the country has seen an increase in the number of employed ICT specialists, which is above the EU average. One of its recent projects is its Digital Transformation of Education EdTech initiative, led by the country’s National Education Agency in 2022. It aims to promote the development and adoption of digital innovations in schools and to improve educators’ digital skills and teaching methods in the field. Besides, it includes the organisation of activities to encourage youth digital entrepreneurship.

Latvia for its part, although still under the EU average in terms of specialized workers, is also making progresses according to its last digital report. For instance it invested in the provision of laptops for secondary schools in 2022. Also, it focuses like in Lithuania and Estonia, on developing adult learning systems, aimed to improve workers’ digital skills or to provide jobseekers some formations. Also, the country stands out by its strong engagement for reducing gender inequalities in the ICT sector. As such, it engages in various initiatives aimed at encouraging women to specialize in the field.

While Estonia’s long process of digital transformation ensures the country a pioneering role in the field, Lithuania and Latvia are actively working towards more digitalized solutions, with education as an important element of their digital agenda.