| Calling this e-Residency is a mistake. It's confusing enough that a commenter here was unsure if they were eligible because their country does not allow dual citizenship. It's a government identity you can apply for and use online that allows you to register companies, among other things- right? As an electronic resident of Estonia what are you entitled to that you can't do in Singapore, Hong Kong, the UK, etc? The only difference I can see is that in those places you likely need to visit the country to setup the company. Those countries certainly wouldn't call that process airplane-Residency. Electronic mail is mail that you send electronically. Here, e-Residency is not residency in any definition of the word, even the ephemeral kind. An e-Residency does not afford the bearer any entitlements not offered to a non-bearer, save for not requiring a flight to Estonia. That said, I appreciate the innovation in an online government ID card for foreigners. The name is a mistake. More accurate would be to call it e-Airplane. As I haven't read everything about this, I'm willing to admit there's a chance I'm wrong. |
And while the initial set of benefits don't seem a lot like residency (except insofar as being eligible for a digital ID of this type -- in countries that offer them -- is, itself, typically something that requires citizenship or residency, so in a sense calling the program that provides access to it to non-citizen non-physical-residents "e-residency" may be reasonable on that basis alone), its overtly an initial "beta" set with planned expansion.