Have you heard about CountryOS? It is a GaaS — Government as a Service app.

Too bad it is only an April’s Fool joke by Estonia, the same country which has popularized the term e-Resident, has e-voting since a couple of years, and where Skype was founded among other successful startups. One could say they’re tech savvy.

What is an e-Resident?

Estonia has an authentication system built in their ID cards, thus residents can file taxes, register companies, vote, and open bank accounts online from their homes, without the need to sign physical papers and posting or bringing them personally to an office.

An e-Resident receives an e-Resident Card, which has the same authentication solution, without granting residency rights and visa to the individual. The person will be vetted and need to personally visit an Estonian embassy to establish a verified identity. It is a once off process.

Estonia isn’t the only country having a digital ID card. Germany and Belgium has it too and many Nordic countries have a system called BankID, which is not run by the government, but accepted by it. Numerous other European countries have a suitable chip on their identity cards, reserved for future use.

The are two reasons Estonia is different:

it is government issued and offers it to non-residents

promotes the use of authentication outside the government, with an open and public interface

They go as far as having a simple widget you can use in your website to have users authenticate with. Makes me wonder, is CountryOS really a joke?

So how does this relate to smart contracts?

A digital id card has two core features:

have a secure way to create digital signatures

prove the identity of the person

Interestingly both of these use cases are very useful for smart contracts.