When Kaspar Korjus was born, he was given a number before he was given a name, as are all babies in Estonia. “My name is 38712012796, which I got before my name of Kaspar,†says Mr. Korjus.
In Estonia, much of life—voting, digital signatures, prescriptions, taxes, bank transactions—is conducted with this number. The resulting services aren’t just more convenient, they are demonstrably better. It takes an Estonian three minutes to…
Article source: http://www.wsj.com/articles/yelp-google-hold-pointers-to-fix-governments-1462766463