Regarding your last point, I have a hard time seeing what you mean. The system is audited both internally and externally fairly regularly, the latest report being released just December last year [0]. There is also frequent news coverage, both supporting and criticizing the system [1][2]. One of the current government parties [3] is an active critic of the system. So it seems like a fair stretch to say that discussing or criticizing the system isn't common or somehow not welcome.
None of this is to say that the system doesn't have flaws, as every other IT system, it does. It is however publicly discussed as you would expect in a democracy.
> There is also frequent news coverage, both supporting and criticizing the system
ERR is government-funded and seems to me quite neutral, not sure how it is relevant here. But it still seems to me that mainstream media is supportive and you have to go to "alternative" news sources to find any true criticism.
> One of the current government parties [3] is an active critic of the system.
Actually 2, if you count both KE and EKRE. And this is one of the major criticisms against those parties and has been so for years.
A good example of the prevailing attitude can be seen in this thread from 2017 about the security hole back then from Hinnavaatlus, probably biggest IT-related forum in Estonia: https://foorum.hinnavaatlus.ee/viewtopic.php?t=715076&postda... The general tonality in the beginning was that this is a tinfoil problem and somehow brought up by KE and EKRE before elections until the reality of the situation sunk in.
While I try to sympathize, I'm not entirely sure I see what you mean. Neither the research linked in the submission nor anything that I linked to discusses data collection, unless I'm grossly misunderstanding you.
As for the things I linked, none of them are reviews. The first link is a ministry report from last year that outlines 25 shortcomings of the system and how to address them — a clear example that there's open discussion about any problems the current system has. The second and third links are national news coverage that clearly show articles from both pro and con sides. The last link is about the current government in general.
Can you please clarify the 'fairly regularly' part? One of the members of that commission said that this is the first time that this kind of audit has been undertaken: https://digi.geenius.ee/rubriik/uudis/e-valimiste-tooruhma-l... To be fair, there are lots of other reviews having taken place, but none of them are regular with the exception of the OECD ones happening during elections: https://et.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elektrooniline_h%C3%A4%C3%A4le...
> There is also frequent news coverage, both supporting and criticizing the system
ERR is government-funded and seems to me quite neutral, not sure how it is relevant here. But it still seems to me that mainstream media is supportive and you have to go to "alternative" news sources to find any true criticism.
> One of the current government parties [3] is an active critic of the system.
Actually 2, if you count both KE and EKRE. And this is one of the major criticisms against those parties and has been so for years.
A good example of the prevailing attitude can be seen in this thread from 2017 about the security hole back then from Hinnavaatlus, probably biggest IT-related forum in Estonia: https://foorum.hinnavaatlus.ee/viewtopic.php?t=715076&postda... The general tonality in the beginning was that this is a tinfoil problem and somehow brought up by KE and EKRE before elections until the reality of the situation sunk in.