Estonia's digital signature system is the foundation for some of its most popular e-services including registering a company online, e-banks, the e-voting system and electronic tax filing – essentially any services that require signatures to prove their validity.
A number of freeware programs were released to end users and system integrators.
The Estonian parliament Riigikogu passed the Digital Signature Act on March 8, 2000, and it entered into force on December 15, 2000.
Users can create digitally signed documents with their ID-card, digital identity card or Mobile-ID using either the DigiDoc3 program that is installed into the computer along with the ID-card software, in the signing section of the State Portal www.eesti.ee or in the DigiDoc Portal.
[10] Upon the issuance of ID-cards or mobile ID-s, every user receives two certificates: one for authentication, the other for digital signing.