Estonia, one of the three Baltic countries, experienced a political and economic reorganization after regaining its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. One of the first priorities of the newly established government was to rebuild a national identity system. As a result, during the 1990s, the legal foundations for the new system were laid out, and both a national identification number system and a population register were established. Since then, Estonia has rolled out a compulsory national identification card program and introduced secure, authenticated digital identities, which are widely used and trusted, for citizens to use when accessing public services. With more than 1.2 million active electronic identification (eID)cards issued to nearly 95 percent of its 1.3 million residents, Estonia has not only successfully developed an effective new system, but has also become an exemplarycase for countries designing new population registration systems or reestablishing population registries after l periods of political instability and unrest. In Estonia, the activities involved in identification, population registration, and vital statistics are
carried out within two key subsystems. The first is the population registration system (or CRVS)1, which is aimed at recording and certifying births, deaths, and other vital events occurring in the population.