Transnational Digital Identity as an Instrument for Global Digital Citizenship: The Case of Estonia’s E-Residency

Digital identity systems appear as part of the digital infrastructure that enables individuals to participate in society as digital citizens. This paper examines the implications of Estonia’s e-residency, the transnational digital identity scheme implemented by the Estonian government in order to give non-residents of the country remote access to Estonia’s digital infrastructure and e-services, for global digital citizenship. We explain the adoption of e-residency by analyzing how individual motives to apply for a digital identity are affected by both individual-level socio-demographic characteristics and macro-level characteristics measuring digital and economic development in applicant’s country of origin. The findings suggest that individual motives to adopt e-residency vary depending on both the citizenship of applicants and the level of e-government development in the country of origin. Although attracting more citizens from digitally advanced countries, individual motives indicate that e-residency can compensate certain digital disadvantage to citizens of countries with lower levels of e-government development.