Legal Impediments in the EU to New Technologies in the Example of E-Residency

Abstract Estonia has created of itself the image of an e-state that is being supported with novel ICT-solutions, the perhaps most renowned of which is e-residency. However, created as a governmental start-up in the national best interest, e-residency could be of marginal relevance in light of global digital identity management. Purely national digital identity or an e-residency grants its holder several rights unknown to, or at least unapplied in a majority of the EU Member States and in the world more generally. But currently it lies on a vacillating legal pedestal which has resulted in copious administrative issues and proposed legal amendments already during its first year of implementation. Concerns, such as the administrative capacity of Estonia to handle potentially 10 million customers of national e-services, arise due to contingent legal footing. On this basis, efficiency of e-residency is critically analysed from the perspective of an autoschediastic regulatory framework presuming high-level administrative competence yet leaving the scope and limits of the functions of the public authorities legally unfurnished and isolated from the EU legal space.