Estonia tenders contract for contactless biometrics enrollment app for e-residency

Estonia is running a tender to acquire remote biometrics capturing technology to perform identity verification for its popular e-residency program.

The IT and Development Centre at the Estonian Ministry of the Interior (SMIT) wants to roll out an app that allows e-residency applicants to speed up the application process. The same app would also enable the e-residency to issue a digital identity stored on the owner’s mobile device, replacing the current physical ID card.

The app will also ensure that images captured meet the requirements of the system, removing the need for applicants to be responsible for the quality of the images they submit. SMIT also intends to build ID document authenticity checking and capturing capability into the app, further easing application.

Any solution selected must meet the requirements of the EU’s eIDAS regulation, so e-residency permits can be used for authentication and electronic signatures.

Collecting face biometrics through a mobile phone is a well-established practice, but fingerprint biometrics are also included, which entails the need for a contactless biometrics enrollment capability.

Contactless fingerprint biometrics have advanced dramatically over the past few years, with for example UK police finding success deploying the technology to officers in the field for trials. Enrollment, however, remains a challenge, with a U.S. Border Patrol official declaring at Identity Week last week: “As far as enrollment, we’re not there yet.”

The situation may be different with cooperative subjects in less-remote environments.

The planned process is not entirely remote, with e-residency applicants receiving their digital ID only by visiting am Estonian government or police and boarder guard (PBGB) office.

“This requirement remains in place to further check, before issuing the e-Residency, whether the e-resident’s digital ID will be received by the same person who applied for it,” says PBGB Identity and Status Bureau Senior Superintendent Anita Preinvalts, according to The Baltic Times. “Since we are also testing fingerprint comparison via the app, we hope to eliminate the requirement to be present in the future, under certain conditions, such as a repeated application for e-Residency. If the solution is successful, we would like to implement it for the issuance of other Estonian identity documents as well.”

Estonian officials hope the new system will reduce wait times for approved e-residents from two months to two weeks, and go live in 2027.

Estonia’s e-residency program contributed 31 million euros (approximately US$34.5 million) to the nation’s economy in the first half of 2024, Estonian World reports. More than 6,000 people were granted e-residency from the country in the first half of the year, and those e-residents started 2,450 companies based in Estonia.

The volume of e-residency applications increased by 7 percent over last year.

The deadline for bids for the “E-resident self-service biometric collection on mobile” contract is October 17.

Article Topics

biometrics  |  contactless biometrics  |  digital ID  |  eIDAS  |  Estonia  |  face biometrics  |  fingerprint biometrics  |  identity verification  |  remote biometrics  |  tender