Anyone who's talked to me about Government Digital Services has heard me rant about the world leading provider....Estonia!

A couple of years ago I had a chance to talk to some of the Estonian developers who worked on their Government services platforms. The impressive part wasn't the UX or site design (mostly Wordpress for frontends) but the way all their services were connected, using their ID card authentication system and common data services (access to health/business records). You could legally register a company in 10 mins compared to weeks in the UK.

They are now leveraging their digital services combined with secure digital authentication to make their country attractive to foreign citizens to start businesses and invest. This will give them a considerable economic advantage compared to their neighbours (and a cheeky slap to Russia as it's capital starts to flee it's depression).

This is the power of digital services, destroying traditional barriers, making it quick, cheap and safe to interact with legal authorities, making trade and business run more effectively.

It's sad that the UK is playing catch up, but we're getting there ... slowly.

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2014/12/estonia-wants-to-give-us-all-digital-id-cards-make-us-e-residents/