OREANDA-NEWS. President Toomas Hendrik Ilves opened the large international Tallinn e-Governance Conference today. This annual event is organised by the eGA – the e-Governance Academy – and brings together decision makers, financers of development cooperation, representatives of civil society, and IT companies from around the world in the Estonian capital.

The Estonian head of state's message to the decision makers from the e-governance field attending the conference was simple: "Please remember that the task of government in the digital age is to develop services for people, and not to just manage a state's administration." Therefore, e-governance is increasingly becoming just e-administration, he acknowledged.

President Ilves stressed the role of government in ensuring identity – both physically and increasingly digitally.

"I believe that the role of the government in the 21st century should be security and the protection of rights in the digital environment, and an inescapable tool in this environment is a reliable identity. It is time for governments to pay more attention to making sure that people are truly who they say they are on the internet." President Ilves said.

This year, the Tallinn e-Governance Conference is focused on the impact of the e-state on countries' economies and societies as a whole. This topic has also been discussed in Digital Dividends, the World Bank's latest development report, for which President Ilves served on the advisory board.

The cybersecurity index developed by eGA will be introduced at the conference, which provides a unique tool for increasing the cybersecurity of countries. The topic of how to measure and assess cybersecurity will also be discussed.

The event will be broadcast on tallinnconference.ee/online and the English-language and tech portals of the Postimees newspaper.