Empowering citizens and business in the Faroe Islands through interoperability

Embarking on the journey of digital transformation is loaded with different meanings across countries. Large nations could see it as a possibility to streamline long-standing practices in the organisation of their public sectors. For smaller states, instead, modernising service provision and delivery could carry vital, broader-ranging returns.

The Faroe Islands have officially started its most recent efforts to foster digital governance in 2015 with a national digitalisation programme and an agency at the helm of it – Talgildu Føroyar, or Digital Faroe Islands. The implementation of the data exchange layer X-Road represented one of the pillars of its strategy. Lilly Dam Hanssen, Project Manager for X-Road and the Citizen Portal at Talgildu Føroyar, tells us how interoperability enables digital transformation in this autonomous territory of 18 islands and a grand total of about 52 000 people.

Background and institutional framework

Cross-border cooperation in the digital field, by now has become the norm in Northern Europe. The Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) was born exactly with the purpose of fostering and deepening cooperation between countries on cross-border digital services. In September 2018 Iceland became a partner of NIIS, and in May 2019 the Faroe Islands became a partner as well.

The Faroe Islands, however, had started its own process of digital transformation already four years earlier, in 2015. With the creation of Talgildu Føroyar in collaboration with the e-Governance Academy, the Faroese Ministry of Finance set the record straight on what they should focus on for the following five years – making life easier for citizens, businesses, and the public administration.

The Faroe Islands are a subnational island jurisdiction (SNIJ) in the territory of the Kingdom of Denmark. However, its international status allows locals to take care of most governing tasks proper of a state. It should not come as a surprise, then, the current effort towards increasing institutional capacity by means of e-governance projects. 

But, already back in 1984, a unique identifier for every Faroese citizen was created for fiscal purposes under the name ‘P-Number’. Then, since 2004, several online environments have been established for taxation and healthcare. Moreover, the country boasts today broadband access for all households and 98% coverage of the national territory. These are good starting points for a digital strategy, but reasons for such a leap lie as well in other relevant contextual factors. 

Needs and challenges

As many small countries, the Faroe Islands face serious challenges connected to its economic, demographic, and social dimensions. The fishing industry holds a predominant place among the nation’s economic activities, with the IT sector currently just recovering from past financial blows. One of the major concerns is youth depopulation – as human capital migrates abroad in search for more opportunities and a less geoeconomically isolated outlook.

Attitudes around the country’s digital strategy span beyond potential cures to such existential threats. Researcher Keegan McBride from TalTech’s Ragnar Nurkse Department of Innovation and Governance, has explored in a study recently published expectations on cost effectiveness and efficiency. These revolve around the idea that digitalisation implies a reduction in administrative costs in the medium-long run. Though it might not always be the case, particularly in contexts with shortage of human resources, it is understandable that budgetary issues are particularly crucial in small states. 

Lilly Dam Hanssen, then, brings up another issue – of a more technical nature – that the Faroese government was trying to solve. “We wanted a standardised way of communicating or sharing data between government institutions, involving the private sector too. At the same time, we needed to have a complete overview of who is sharing what with whom. Safety and security, of course, were crucial components of this idea as well,” she says.

The solution

As a result, one of the four pillars of the Faroese digital strategy was the creation of a secure data exchange environment. Named Heldin, the Faroese X-Road environment allows public and private sector entities to exchange data in a secure and efficient manner. 

It works also as an enabler for further e-governance development. “The National Digitalisation Programme of the Faroe Islands is based on a citizens’ portal, electronic identity, interoperability, and basic data registries. As you can see, Heldin is right there. Not by chance it was the first pillar to be implemented, as we believe it’s what brings the other solutions together,” Hanssen explains.

Heldin was implemented already in 2016 based on version 5 of the X-Road technology. Three years and no points of failure ahead, the Faroe Islands is looking into migrating to X-Road version 6. “Today, Heldin counts 34 institutions and 37 services. But since we are getting our citizen service portal ready, these numbers are set to grow in the upcoming months. The main advantage of Heldin is that it allows decentralised data exchange. Moreover, the platform is compatible with all the IT systems that service providers are using. It’s fundamental in our effort to reach the goals of our National Digitalisation Strategy,” Hanssen highlights.

“We chose to name our X-Road environment ‘Heldin’ from a traditional Faroese tool, made of ram's horn. In the good old days, it was used to carry hay. A rope would be tied to the Held and looped around the hay, securely binding it all together, so we could also carry more of it,” Hanssen concludes. With the increasing amount of data exchanged, we can confirm – X-Road fits the purpose. 

Access to electricity and gas smart meter data in Estonia powered by X-Road

Energy efficiency, renewables and consumer centricity figure among the lines of action to boost the transition towards cleaner energy systems - ways of producing, delivering and consuming energy in a more sustainable way. In the framework of a global call to action, the European Union has established targets related to these main areas in its Clean Energy for All Europeans package. However, commitment to the common good consists not only of great objectives, but also of tools that effectively allow us to reach them.

The deployment of information technology has a significant impact on the feasibility of contemporary policy actions. Elering, the Estonian independent electricity and gas transmission system operator (TSO), has decided to rely on the X-Road technology to create Estfeed – the solution for data access and exchange on Elering’s smart grid platform. Kaija Valdmaa, Project Manager of Estfeed at Elering, tells us how innovation represents a potential meeting point between environmental sustainability, active participation, and cost efficiency for consumers.

Background and institutional framework

The mission and main purposes of Estfeed as an energy data exchange platform are entrenched in the history of Elering as a company. The approval of the Third Energy Package (2009) by the European Parliament pushed for the liberalisation of national energy markets. The Government of Estonia opted then for founding Elering already in January 2010, separating the company from the production and sales activities of Eesti Energia. The duties and competences of Elering focus on the security of energy supply, and the management of the Estonian electricity and gas system in real time. Through activities of market monitoring and research and development, the company also contributes to policy formulation through expertise and technical know-how.

Elering was already part of the Estonian national X-Road environment X-tee, which gave ground to the creation of Estfeed. The amendments brought to the Electricity Market Act (2003) in 2014 and to the Natural Gas Act (2003) in 2017 were meant to facilitate market competition and foster information exchange. As a result, regulations contributed to give Elering further legitimacy on legal grounds to develop the Estfeed data exchange platform.

More recent EU-wide developments – such as the GDPR regulation and the provisions of the Clean Energy package – contributed to the ongoing refining of Estfeed’s tasks and prerogatives towards becoming the energy data exchange platform for the whole EU. Operative since September 2017, Estfeed ensures smart meter data access and management in Estonia. Third parties that would not have access on a legal basis, like suppliers, app developers, and consumers, can now access consumer smart meter data – if users have previously granted access rights to the specific service provider.

Needs and challenges

Estfeed is located at the intersection of the needs of consumers (data owners), energy service providers (data users) and meter data hubs (data providers). With the amount of data generated on consumption, production, and transmission, effective information management is the key to systemically increase the efficiency and reliability of the energy system. Consequentially to such improvements, app developers and Elering itself can provide further customer-friendly e-services for citizens to keep track of their electricity or gas consumption and production data. 

For this to happen, the presence of smart meters in offices and households needs to become the norm – a target achieved in Estonia by 2014 already, with 100% coverage. But as Kaija Valdmaa points out, “In the energy sector, challenges are not anymore about building new physical grids, but about their smart management, especially because of the increase in renewables, distributed production and service provision.” With all the changes witnessed in the energy sector, “the market requires accurate and real-time data to be more and better accessible,” Valdmaa continues.

Though Estonian regulations already granted market participants the possibility to access data by law, universities, research centres, and app developers also wished to join the network. However, providing them with this chance was not stated in any kind of legal act. Based on such elements, the resulting research project initiated by Elering identified X-Road as a feasible solution to the challenge. Features like secure data exchange, and organisation and machine-to-machine level authentication, are provided by X-Road out of the box. In addition, the Estfeed consent management system (built on top of X-Road) monitors and grants third parties access to users’ information, as citizens remain the owners of their own data.

The solution

Active since September 2017, Estfeed is capable of harmonizing energy data access for companies, developers, and citizens for an efficient management of energy meter data in a trusted, GDPR-compliant environment. It also allows consumers to participate in the energy market – an essential goal in the Clean Energy Package - using smart services like consumption management, providing flexibility services to the transmission grid through the aggregation of many consumers.

The platform developed by Elering is based on the X-Road technology. It features high security standards in access and authentication, interoperability, efficiency in information exchange through standardization. “The decision to choose X-Road in the first place was not a technical matter, but about the business value of the technology. Thanks to reliability, transparency, the certification and transaction systems, X-Road could offer the trust and credibility needed to develop our own platform,” Valdmaa explains.

Furthermore, the e-Elering portal – as the front office of Estfeed´s consent management system – gives customers the possibility to check, compare, and grant third parties access to personal energy metering data through 14 different services. All while in the background, the Estfeed platform exchanges and manages data hubs and sensors information seamlessly. In its main functionalities, Estfeed enables: 

• Data access and sharing;

• For end-consumers, the possibility to check consumption and production information, as well as to authorize third parties to access their meter data;

• The endurance of a central platform for the efficient management of electricity and gas meter data access. 

In an integrated European framework, TSO-s are also tasked with the role of managing inward and outward fluxes, as well as data access. Elering and Estfeed stand as an example of how information technology can help monitor and redistribute energy resources. It means working for the common good in two ways – cutting costs for citizens and caring about the environment.

Source: Elering.ee

Improving environmental services in the Greater Helsinki area

With the purpose of increasing its capabilities in data exchange and access to key information, the Helsinki Region Environmental Services Authority (HSY) is currently working on joining Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer, the Finnish X-Road environment, to foster the provision of water services and waste management in the Greater Helsinki area.

The project is currently undergoing the set-up phase, testing connections between information systems of relevant public authorities. Timo Vakkilainen, Project and Development Manager of Digital Services at HSY, describes how connecting information systems to the data exchange layer will impact the quality of performance for service users and the environment.

Background and institutional framework

In Finland, the open source data exchange layer solution X-Road ensures confidentiality, integrity and interoperability between information systems. The development of Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer, the national X-Road environment, took place under the three-year-long National Service Architecture Programme (KaPa). Throughout the past two years, the Suomi.fi Web Service portal has been established as the single gateway to e-services for citizens and companies, shifting administrative tasks and practices to the digital environment.

As it often happens in e-governance, legislative changes proved to be necessary to enable the transition. The Act on Common Administrative E-Service Support Services (2016) required public authorities to join the Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer, and HSY makes no exception. The environmental agency was looking into connecting with other public authorities such as the Population Register Center, the Patent and Registration Office, the National Land Survey of Finland. Now, by joining the Finnish X-Road environment, together with the use of Suomi.fi e-Authorizations and e-Identification services, HSY is aiming to collect information necessary to its activities in more efficient and accurate ways.

Needs and challenges

The accuracy of information is indeed one of the main concerns for HSY. In order to effectively provide services on water and waste management to the population of the Greater Helsinki area, counting over one million inhabitants, data on consumption and collected waste amounts and costs must be as up-to-date as possible. 

Though we may not be talking about real-time information, surely owners’ addresses for billing and other types of communications have to be spot on. At the same time, the financial situation of companies becoming customers of the HSY, or currently being listed as such, is also relevant. Such type of information can be gathered either from other public registers or through self-service reporting. Interoperability between public authorities can enhance necessary data exchange, and digital authentication tools enable users to submit reports themselves. 

However, before getting to fully roll out an efficient digital ecosystem, public entities sometimes have to go through a series of obstacles pertaining technical know-how and legislative frameworks. Though joining the Finnish X-Road was meant to be as easy as possible for any organization, “we realized from the beginning that we just did not have the resources to implement and maintain the servers needed to connect to Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer,” Vakkilainen explains. “Luckily we managed to initially buy the Security Servers ‘as a service’ from a partner company and we implemented them in their cloud,” Vakkilainen says.

At the same time, the once-only principle had not yet been achieved as common practice in the Finnish data exchange environment. “Some legal obstacles did not make consuming services via Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer work as seamlessly for everyone as it was supposed to. We would still need to send official requests for personal data to different actors” Vakkilainen warns, making the case for technical and legislative developments to progress as parallel lines towards the creation of a truly efficient digital ecosystem.

The solution

By joining the national Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer, HSY will be able to request up-to-date information from other relevant public registers and increase the effectiveness of its operations. “I think we saw the advantages quite well from the beginning, without any push or pull from other actors. Suomi.fi Data Exchange Layer offers a great platform for data exchange and makes it easier to build new digitized services based on interoperability between national registers, for both citizens and companies,” Vakkilainen highlights.

To take advantage of the possibilities offered by different Suomi.fi services, provided by the Population Register Centre as the responsible authority, HSY is pairing efficient data exchange with e-Identification and e-Authorizations as well – the latter of which has been shortlisted for the Sharing & Reuse Awards 2019 of the European Commission platform Joinup. “HSY works to significantly increase the efficiency of its services for private users, companies, and institutions in Greater Helsinki. With servers relying now on HSY’s Azure Cloud and currently being tested, rolling out the first services will take place already in the next few months,” Vakkilainen announces.

From self-service reporting through secure identification to gathering accurate information about users and consumption. Interoperability can boost the effectiveness of environmental services provided for over one million citizens in Finland. As a municipal body and an institution, HSY saw digital development as an opportunity to be closer to people and enterprises in caring for the quality of the lived environment.

Iceland joins the Nordic interoperability league with Straumurinn

On a quest to improve the availability and accessibility of public services, Iceland becomes the latest country to implement its own X-Road data exchange layer environment. Straumurinn, the Icelandic name given to the platform, is set to increase the ability of the government to deliver online services for both public and private actors.

Increasing security and safety of the data exchange established, and with the goal to make the once-only principle a reality, X-Road was presented as the ideal solution to tackle organizational and efficiency issues in the Icelandic public administration. Guðlaug Dröfn Þórhallsdóttir, Project Manager for interoperability at Digital Iceland (Stafrænt Ísland – Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs), explains what’s the current status of the project and what are the main advantages that Straumurinn is set to bring.

Background and institutional framework

The cooperation between Iceland and the Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) officially started in September 2018. NIIS and Iceland went on to officially sign the partnership agreement, making Iceland the first partner of the international development organization of X-Road, and giving the kick-off towards the development and implementation of Straumurinn.

At the time, government authorities in Iceland were aiming to build an interoperability platform that would suit the needs of the public administration, in cooperation with the European Union with regard to the procurement process. During such stage, X-Road was identified as the way to go to provide Iceland with its own national data exchange layer. The project falls within the framework of the Digital Iceland initiative, under the supervision and jurisdiction of the Icelandic Ministry of Finance and Economic Affairs. 

The Minister of Finance and Economic Affairs of Iceland Bjarni Benediktsson met with NIIS in November 2018 – in presence of Siim Sikkut, Government CIO of Estonia, Anna-Maija Karjalainen, Director General of Public Sector ICT for the Finnish Ministry of Finance, and Ville Sirviö, CEO of NIIS. On February 27, 2019, a high-level meeting between the Prime Ministers of Iceland and Estonia, respectively Katrín Jakobsdóttir and Jüri Ratas, became the perfect occasion for ministers to announce that Iceland is adopting X-Road for secure data exchange and interoperability.

Needs and challenges

Iceland is currently undergoing an effort to update and improve its public sector systems, and enable authorities to deal more efficiently with the exchange of data and information. Among the needs laid out emerge the desire to deliver most public services in a digital ecosystem, to enforce the once-only principle when it comes to data provision and applications, to cut on the time and effort currently necessary to fill out forms and requests.

The country fares particularly well when it comes to telecommunication infrastructures, for example with regard to high speed network coverage and internet usage – but providing public services online is a different story. “Citizens demand more and better online services, but our distributed technical environment of databases and departments is characterized by poor interoperability,” Þórhallsdóttir explains. As the Head of Division at Digital Iceland, she’s aware that some structural work needs to be done, particularly so to avoid the risk of just replicating flawed practices and procedures in a digital environment.

Currently going through the set-up phase of Straumurinn, the Icelandic government is facing two types of challenges – organizational and technical. “Changes in laws and legislation are necessary, as well as a clear understanding of the distribution of roles and responsibilities in a changed ecosystem. We are now proceeding with setting-up the infrastructure, though we know that we need to create also a system of seamless services around the implementation of the platform,” Þórhallsdóttir says. Moving from such level of awareness, contacts with Estonian and Finnish partners stay strong, as mistakes and success points always prove to be good examples of the dos and don’ts in structural changes involving technology.

The solution

It did not take long to realize that X-Road is a viable option to solve some of the issues that Digital Iceland is aiming to tackle. The data exchange layer originally developed in Estonia, and then adopted by a series of other countries, has proved to be a fundamental support to the establishment of secure data exchange between the public and the private, and to be one of the key elements in the making of a truly digital society. We have witnessed it in Estonia, and then with the cross-border data exchange taking place between Estonia and Finland. Now, Iceland is implementing its X-Road environment, Straumurinn, to satisfy citizens’ expectations and make most public services available and accessible online.

Straumurinn is the Icelandic way to efficiency and security in information exchange. After the set-up phase, the first services will be available through the X-Road environment, enabling government agencies and ministries to exchange information through a standardized and secure solution. “We will be able to communicate with citizens using different information systems or online interfaces, and we will do so in a more flexible and functional way than today. X-Road will make the exchange of information between Icelandic agencies and business organizations easier to handle, especially with regard to queries and form submissions, and it will help us build our State portal,” Þórhallsdóttir highlights.

And though it is true that the data exchange layer was born in Estonia, the X-Road family includes today also Finland, Iceland, and the Faroe Islands. Could this be the prelude to a Nordic data exchange alliance? Cross-border cooperation reduces the workload of the public sector, and fosters international business activity through increased efficiency and reduced paperwork. Together, these countries are setting an example on how to build closer ties in a geo-economic area driven by digital governance and interoperability.

The business registers of Estonia and Finland start cross-border interoperability

The end of February 2019 brought great news for the enhancement of interoperability across borders. National business registers in Estonia and Finland are starting to exchange data between each other taking advantage of the opportunities given by X-Road, as the gateway to higher information accuracy and efficiency in handling queries.

Both parties involved have officially put their signatures on the agreement. Now, we take you through the main features of the cooperation on this project with Antti Riivari, Director General of the Finnish Patent and Registration Office (PRH), and Ingmar Vali, Head of Court Registration Department at the Estonian Ministry of Justice.

Background and institutional framework

The process that led to the signing of the agreement followed two parallel lines, not always moving towards the same goal at the same speed – there is a political side, and there is a technical side. Contrarily to what we could believe to be the issue in countries with a longer legacyon their shoulders, the technical aspects of the cooperation between the two business registers seemed to be cleared out by the end of 2017 already. However, in order to lay out and understand specifically what kind of data is going to be exchanged, and who has access to that information, there is the need for a specific agreement.

The final document with such information has been officially signed in February 2019, but it falls into place in the general institutional framework on digital cross-border cooperation between Estonia and Finland. Back in 2016, the Estonian and the Finnish Prime Ministers signed the joint declaration establishing the main lines of development to pursue for an international ecosystem in information exchange. Shortly afterwards, it became clear how the countries’ business registers could be among the first departments in the public sector to enjoy the advantages given by the implementation of X-Road.

Two things turned out to be necessary for this cooperation to come to life – refining the nation-wide implementation of X-Road in Finland and the compatibility with the Estonian system, as well as a specific definition of the people and the type of data that were to be involved in the information exchange. Though the cooperation on making the two systems match started right after the needs had been identified, it was only in 2018 that Estonia and Finland initially discussed the institutional draft agreement. Now in its official version, the document gives the green light to a few last operational tests and the practical beginning of the data exchange.

Needs and challenges

Antti Riivari (PRH) says it with a metaphor: “You need the road to drive on, and then you can have very different types of cars going to different places, but first you need the road.” X-Road in Finland was intended to provide a platform for all its departments and databases to communicate and cooperate. Then, after this initial phase, government agencies could actually proceed with more advanced practices of data exchange.

Despite not involving huge traffic of data and connections (for now), the Estonian and Finnish business registers identified a set of needs related to three main dimensions – quality of the data, efficiency, cost-effectiveness.

The topic of data accuracy is strictly connected to the long-lasting need for more security. “Let’s say that there is a company coming to Estonia to start a sub-unit or a branch here. If the mother company has some problems related to bankruptcy, or court cases, or annual reports, the business register in Estonia needs to know what is going on”, is the fitting example presented by Ingmar Vali (Ministry of Justice). Thus, enhancing the registers’ capability to gather the information they need results in a higher confidence in the data itself and less bureaucracy for both public and private actors, making checks and approvals more precise and quicker.

“But despite the general absence of problematic issues, an obstacle has been represented by fees”, Vali explains. While information can be accessed free of chargein the Estonian case, most business registers from other European countries require payments to access specific data. With the Finnish business register making no exception in this sense, this element accounted for the main talking point in the definition of the cooperation.

The solution

X-Road is now allowing the business register of Estonia and Finland to exchange queries directly, increasing the efficiency of the communications and improving the accuracy of the data. 

The recently signed agreement also generates more advantages for both the agencies and entrepreneurs – in the first place by cutting the costs of submitting requests, and in the second by eliminating the unnecessary paperwork that would have been required in country-to-country transactions. “It’s a need-driven process, we’re making sure that everything works as it should, and then we’ll explore future possibilities step by step. We now want to define and connect the authorities that would be most keen on accessing information on Estonian companies”, Riivari says.

Basic company details aside, the improved quality of the data and information security brings data exchange to the next level. “After reaching the full-scale implementation phase, borders and paper movement will basically stop, which is our goal because it makes everything more efficient and less costly. Imagine if these principles would take over across Europe! Estonia and Finland, in this sense, are doing well in setting an example for this idea”, Vali states.

By having X-Road as a national data exchange layer solution in Finland and Estonia, plugging in units and departments of the public administration to an X-Road trust federation between two countries comes easier. The case of the two business registers is another sign of how technology can favour international cooperation, and make routine work smoother and more efficient for both users and service providers.

Estonia and Finland heading towards real-time data exchange on taxation

The Estonian Tax and Customs Board (EMTA) and the Finnish Tax Administration (VERO) are moving towards a cooperation that would allow the agencies to exchange data in a more accurate and efficient way. And speaking of ways, what could serve the purpose better than the reliable and well-tested infrastructure of X-Road?

With the project currently on hold, but at a stage where preliminary talks and declarations of intention have already been explored, Anna Aleksejeva (EMTA) and Ann-Sofi Johansson (VERO) tell us about needs and benefits that this project will be dealing with.

Background and institutional framework

The northern and the southern shores of the Gulf of Finland celebrated the 100thanniversary of their independence respectively in 2017 and 2018. However, by that time, Estonia and Finland had already reached a crucial agreement enhancing the long-standing cooperation between the two countries: at the coming of age of the two Republics, Prime Ministers of both sides had signed a joint declaration in 2016 enhancing cross-border data exchange and the development of digital services in different fields. Tax records and fiscal matters, naturally, were included in the declaration as well.

The tax boards of Estonia and Finland have started a project aimed at fostering the exchange of information via X-Road, as the platform provides the best solution for the countries to share data in a secured, stable, and efficient digital environment. Legal obstacles have not presented concerns, and a draft agreement awaits to receive the final signatures; however, the current project, started in December 2016 and temporarily put aside exactly one year later, encountered a few bumps on technicalities regarding the databases that were to be connected. Currently on hold, both parties remain strongly interested in the project and work towards solving the last issues that can make this cooperation start in practice as well. 

The interest manifested by Estonia and Finland does not represent a novelty in this sense, not even for what concerns tax-related data exchange. The forefather of the current project could be identified in the BSR TaxI plan from 2014 and 2015, aimed at gathering tax authorities and state information agencies from Estonia, Sweden, and Latvia, and explore the possibilities for cross-border cooperation “on the electronic exchange of tax information in the Baltic Sea Region”. Though Finnish tax authorities did not take part to that project, both Estonia and Finland took the chance to openly express interest in starting bilateral agreements that would make such kind of cooperation come to life. As it then turned out, tax-related topics became part of the broader, more comprehensive agreement that the two countries reached in order to establish a smart process of information exchange.

Needs and challenges

Due to the current status of the project, it’s not easy to provide numbers on how many people and companies would be positively affected by this project. The needs to be tackled, instead, are clear and shared between the tax authorities of the two countries. “It is difficult to summarise and process the number of requests we receive”, explains Aleksejeva, Chief Expert at the International Information Exchange unit of EMTA, “as these often include information from foreign databases and additional documents that need to be analysed by an employee”. It is primarily a matter of human resources, since “human labour is frequently involved and now it can take from 1 up to 20 months to get the information we need”, Aleksejeva explains.

Ann-Sofi Johansson, Manager at the International Information Exchange department of VERO, gives us an idea of the pipeline involved in the process of requesting information. We are currently presented with a situation where employees need to overlook the process of auditing and requesting information from foreign authorities from the beginning to the end. “Saving resources is important, for example in the case of an audit: right now, if we need information from Estonia, first we have someone defining what kind of information is needed; then someone sends the request; then there’s another person on the other side receiving and processing the request, and so on and so on”, Johansson says.

Connecting agencies and databases, once that issues of compatibility and readability of the data are overcome, will allow the two Tax Boards to save human and economic resources, and to increase the accuracy of the data exchanged.

The solution

The reliability and scalability of X-Road has been put to test in different contexts and situations already. The reasons that make its implementation so appealing in this case are connected to what made it the backbone of e-Estonia, serving the needs of a whole country since 2001: efficiency, accuracy, security.

The path Estonia and Finland already decided to take, first with the Prime Ministers’ declaration, and then with the start of different projects aimed at enforcing such cooperation, implies the use of X-Road in its adaptability to diverse situations. As both the Estonian and the Finnish Tax Boards have recognized, the current project will bring significant advantages to the two agencies in dealing with income declarations, VAT information, and international audits.

“What we need to have is real-time information right from the start,” Johansson states, “as the world keeps moving faster, and it is important for us to dispose of correct information, at the right time, to formulate correct data on taxation”. The benefits do not affect only the quality of the information exchanged, but also the general workflow managed by the two agencies. “X-Road would be the perfect solution to avoid unnecessary manual analysis of data and to automate the information exchange between databases for simple requests,” Aleksejeva highlights.

The Estonian Tax and Customs Board and the Finnish Tax Administration remain interested in the project, and are currently working on the issues of compatibility and readiness to make the cooperation effectively see the light.