Latvia’s digital environment: the road to a digital smart state

The increasing pressure to improve the efficiency of state administration and optimize costs, a shortage of human resources, public demand for modern means of communicating with government, and reducing environmental impact are the main reasons why countries in Europe are increasingly looking at digitalizing state administration. One of the European leaders in government digitalization, despite its relatively small territory and population, is Latvia, which has been selected as an official partner of the Smart Country Convention 2024 – Germany’s expo for digitization in the public sector. 

In Latvia, more than 91% of public services are available online, giving it a rating of 88.22 points on the Digital Economy and Society Index (DESI) of the European Commission (the EU average being 79.4 points). As a result, based on the number of services digitalized, Latvia ranks number 6 in the EU. 

Latvia’s digitalization success story is based on a synergy of several factors: thorough strategic planning, a strong information and communication technology (ICT) sector, appropriate infrastructure, close cooperation between the public and private sector, including the openness of the government to innovation, an open economy, and a competitive telecommunications market. Over the course of the past 20 years, the government has prioritised creating user-oriented e-services that are easy to use and available to a wide range of society. This has not only helped provide services in sparsely populated areas, but also increased the productivity of state administration and provided people with the opportunity to enjoy the same level of experience in obtaining public services as they do from the commercial sector. 

Latvia in facts and figures

• ICT industry

- 6% of the GDP (2023)

- 10 000+ companies

- 24% of workers are female (EU average: 19.4%)

- 5.4% of the population have studied ICT

• Digital infrastructure

- 93.1% of all households have an internet connection (2023)

- 91.5% regular internet users

- OECD leader in mobile data usage

- one of the first to introduce 5G internet technologies

A universal digital key for everyone

A prerequisite for an active digital environment both in the public and private sector is a digital identity. The government of Latvia made a strategic decision quite some time ago to make a digital identity available to the whole population and all businesses free of charge. Today, it can be used in the form of a smartcard or mobile app. This has promoted the broad use of digital documents and the rapid development of digital services. Another driver of this success is that also all providers of digital commercial services need to ensure that the public can access these services using their “universal digital key”. It is important to note that, in Latvia, this digital key is also available to foreign nationals who hold a permanent residence permit or are otherwise active within the Latvian economy. 

A centralised e-governance system ensures that the public and businesses in Latvia can perform almost any administrative action at any given time and place: from verifying and declaring income, paying taxes or filing for tax returns, as well as applying for social and healthcare services to receiving unemployment benefits, pensions, social benefits, enrolling in education institutions, and obtaining business services. Furthermore, e-prescriptions are available online allowing people to purchase their medication even while abroad, there is also the possibility to sell and buy cars in a digitally secure way, obtain remote notary services when purchasing or selling property and validating transactions. The list goes on and on. 

A pioneer in artificial intelligence language technologies

The use of artificial intelligence and language technologies in state administration has, over the past 5 years, opened the door to introducing an increasingly broad range of digital services in Latvia, translating into invaluable savings of time, human, and natural resources.

“We are the first country in the world to have introduced our very own AI language technology – hugo.lv – at the national level. It provides machine translation, voice recognition, and voice synthesising services adapted to state administration content, and these are widely used and integrated into various e-services throughout the state administration of Latvia. The concept of Latvia’s national language technology platform has also garnered extensive international interest. In collaboration with local partners, we have also introduced similar solutions in Estonia, Iceland, Malta, and Croatia,” Kaspars Kauliņš, International Business Development Director at tech company “Tilde”, explains.

In Latvia, focused development of language technologies and their integration into e-tools along with opportunities provided by generative AI has facilitated the successful development of virtual assistants which are now being used by more than 100 state administration bodies and agencies. Virtual assistants answer frequently asked questions and help solve basic problems, thus ensuring easy communication with state institutions 24/7 and freeing up civil servants to deal with more complicated issues.

“Language technologies are the future of digitized state administration around the world. They help automate and optimise communication, overcome language barriers, significantly improve the availability of information, and the speed of its circulation,” Mr Kauliņš explains.

Tools for smart cities

Over the past several years, Riga, the capital of Latvia, has had its sights set on becoming a smart city. The city has successfully updated its ICT infrastructure, including setting up a centralised management system for digital services, and has also implemented a range of smart city pilot projects in the areas of mobility, energy efficiency, and public safety. The open data principle has gained special public appreciation: all geospatial information at the disposal of the city council can be viewed and used via the GEO RIGA platform.

Mobile technology and 5G network projects implemented in Riga and Latvia have also generated significant interest elsewhere around the world. In collaboration with the mobile communications and technology company “LMT, a traffic monitoring system (TMS) has been introduced in Riga and other cities around Latvia to remotely monitor traffic in intersections, provide useful data, and help identify traffic violations. The city of Riga also hopes to soon introduce a fully functional digital twin of the city-wide transit systems. 

“Thanks to NB-IoT technologies, smart meters at water companies remotely obtain readings, issue invoices automatically, and immediately log any technical issues. In the future, these solutions are also planned to be introduced in other industries. A project to establish a drone corridor over the most important sites with restricted access in Riga is currently being developed to allow the municipal police to use drones to improve water safety and identify various violations. Another important milestone is 5G network innovations: this summer, for the first known time in the world, a full 5G sea connectivity demonstration took place at Riga Port during which the 5G multi-hop principle could be seen in action, in real-time, with an immense amount of data being sent from vessel to vessel, from drone to vessel, and from vessel to port. Trusted, uninterrupted high-speed 5G coverage over water is especially important with demand on the rise for autonomous ships and boats, sensors, drones, off-shore wind turbines, and other connected devices which require networks to receive data; therefore, this solution has generated broad interest also from other ports around the globe,” lists Ingmārs Pūķis, Member of the Board and Vice-President for Marketing and Business Development at LMT, as he describes some of the most interesting solutions. 

Information material prepared with the support of the Recovery Fund. The author is solely responsible for the content of this publication. The views expressed herein do not reflect the official position of the European Union or the European Commission.