Summary

The outstanding and internationally acknowledged achievement of newly independent Estonia has been the construction of an innovative information society. The fixed capital of our small country with little resources consists of our openness to new solutions, the ability to think the unthinkable, and readiness to get to know the unknown.

Undoubtedly, a significant factor for building Estonia’s reputation as a successful and open e-government has been involving the legislator as an innovation fan. The definite goal of legal norms has throughout the years been supporting the new digital solutions and e-resourcefulness of Estonian information society. To achieve this, the fundamental rights of the individual have had to take a back seat on several occasions. Inter alia, the legislator did not establish that the database statutes should state the lifetime of the data; that upon publishing the salaries of officials, European case law has not been considered; and issues considering personal details upon making data from databases accessible to the public is not clearly regulated.

The authors believe that Estonia should prove to itself that we are mature enough to not abandon values for economic success. This would give us the option to direct attention towards the issue of how in the future to better overcome the pitfalls between an open society and an individual’s private life.