The Potential of the Estonian e-Governance Infrastructure in Supporting Displaced Estonian Residents

This paper examines the possibilities of using the Estonian e-Governance infrastructure in an innovate manner to help displaced Estonian residents in a hypothetical national emergency. We begin by exploring the challenges that displaced persons and aid organizations face throughout three key stages of displacement – flight from conflict zones, temporary displacement, and long term integration. On this basis we analyze how the Estonian e-Governance infrastructure can be used in a refugee emergency. We provide a definition of intangible e-Governance infrastructure. We identify the key component of the existing Estonian e-Governance infrastructure as well as the proposed Governmental Cloud and Data Embassy initiatives. We analyze linkages where the utilization of the infrastructure could potentially counter the challenges of displaced persons and aid organizations. To realize these linkages, we propose a policy to make certain refugee-related, otherwise restricted governmental datasets accessible to international aid organizations. Additionally, we introduce a legal framework for the policy, analyze the technological requirements of its implementation, and discuss its communicational and technology export-related implications.