Deutsche Welle A new program, called DE-Mail, will allow for official and secure communications between people in Germany, government and the private sector. Registration for the new system began this week.
However, DE-Mail is not expected to become fully operational until later this year, once the DE-Mail Act passes the German parliament. It has been tested in the southern German city of Friedrichshafen since 2009.
// Another European nation further up the Baltic coast, Estonia, may provide an example of what German society could look like in a few years. Since 2002, Estonia has had digital ID cards that allow for not only secure e-mail, but also other applications including Internet voting.
"What we have in Estonia and have had for eight years is that we have universal notion of digitally signed files," said Tarvi Martens, one of the leaders of the Estonian digital ID card project at the Estonian Certification Center.//
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