[vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=“Connecting All of Europe With a Single Crossroad“ font_container=“tag:h1|font_size:48|text_align:left“ use_theme_fonts=“yes“ css=“.vc_custom_1638364464821{margin-top: -25px !important;}“][vc_custom_heading text=“The secure data-exchange layer X-Road®“ font_container=“tag:h2|font_size:28|text_align:left|color:%23676b6d“ use_theme_fonts=“yes“ css=“.vc_custom_1638364491375{padding-bottom: 10px !important;}“][vc_column_text]An interview with Ville Sirviö, Nordic Institute for Interoperability Solutions (NIIS)[/vc_column_text][ultimate_spacer height=“15″ height_on_tabs=“15″ height_on_tabs_portrait=“15″ height_on_mob_landscape=“15″ height_on_mob=“15″][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=“In Short“ font_container=“tag:h2|font_size:34|text_align:left“ use_theme_fonts=“yes“ css=“.vc_custom_1622108794089{margin-top: -25px !important;}“ el_class=“box-headline“][vc_row_inner el_class=“box-content-wrapper“][vc_column_inner][vc_column_text]X-Road® is a open-source software and ecosystem solution that provides unified and secure data exchange between organisations. The basic idea of X-Road is that members of an ecosystem exchange data through access points (Security Servers) that implement the same technical specifications. X-Road is a digital public good, available free of charge.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column_inner][/vc_row_inner][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row css=“.vc_custom_1519752670572{margin-top: -10px !important;}“][vc_column][ultimate_spacer height=“30″ height_on_tabs=“15″ height_on_tabs_portrait=“15″ height_on_mob_landscape=“15″ height_on_mob=“15″][vc_column_text]X-Road was initially developed in Estonia in 2001 and is now used by different countries and organisations as a system to exchange data securely. Together with Finland and Iceland, the Nordic Insitute of Interoperability Solutions (NIIS) is responsible for the continuous development of the system. The Institute’s CEO, Ville Sirviö, explained in an interview with the IM+io magazine how such a high-security data exchange system for the public sector was built and the risks and benefits of having information systems connected to the Internet.[/vc_column_text][/vc_column][/vc_row][vc_row][vc_column][vc_custom_heading text=“IM+io: Unlike Estonia, digitalisation in Germany’s public sector has been lagging behind. Could you explain what X-Road is and what it does?“ font_container=“tag:h3|text_align:left“][vc_column_text]VS: X-Road is a software solution with roots in Estonia which has been implemented by numerous countries around the world. Today Estonia, Finland and Iceland are working together on the continuous development of this solution. X-Road is a centrally managed, distributed data exchange layer that transfers data between information systems in the public and private sectors. It provides a standardised way to produce and consume services while at the same time placing a high value on security. The security features include machine-level authentication, transport-level encryption, timestamping, digital signatures of messages and logging of messages.
[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=“IM+io: How was the idea of this system born? What is your success story?“ font_container=“tag:h3|text_align:left“][vc_column_text]VS: Estonia faced a few challenges around the millennium. One of the challenges was information security and how to build a safe data exchange system. But that was only one part of the dilemma. Another question that had to be answered was how to even exchange data.

For many years governments in Europe have been using closed private networks to exchange official data between authorities. These networks usually are fully private and are not connected to the public Internet. A network of that type did not exist.

The solution the X-Road inventors in Estonia came up with was to set up a software-based system that uses the public Internet. This does not seem very innovative at first, but we have to remember that during that time, in 2001, the Internet was still a relatively new thing. Today we usually do not think of the risks to our data when using the Internet. We feel safe. The Internet is part of our daily life, which makes us forget about the dangers that come with it. I think this information security issue was the motivation to build a secure network solution that can be operated over the Internet without having to build additional infrastructure, like a new private network. That is what led to the development of X-Road.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=“IM+io: Were there any trust issues or political discussions about data security concerning X-Road?“ font_container=“tag:h3|text_align:left“][vc_column_text]VS: When I think about the beginning when Estonia was proposing the use of X-Road to Finland, we had political and technical discussions between the experts on each side. Despite that, trust between the two countries was necessary to establish a cooperation like this. The fact that X-Road is used in over 20 countries today shows high confidence in the solution and in the countries that are developing it. Estonia, Finland and Iceland are countries that others can see as trustworthy partners in technology.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=“IM+io: What are the advantages of X-Road?“ font_container=“tag:h3|text_align:left“][vc_column_text]VS: The main advantage of X-Road is the ability to build a national ecosystem that can be utilised by public authorities and private companies. Through one access point, X-Road allows every organisation to access and consume data and services that are already part of the ecosystem, while at the same time making their data available to others who might need it. Having the connection in place means that we do not have to spend additional time building point-to-point integrations or connecting services by using different solutions, platforms or technologies. Once the organisation is part of the ecosystem, it can make its data available to others and vice versa.
In addition, the single ecosystem approach allows for higher security standards and enforcing certain security policies. For example, the message exchange in X-Road can be fully logged. X-Road allows the national operator to decide whether to only use metadata logs or logs including the entire message. The metadata logs only show the metadata regarding the message exchange between the information systems and the exact time when certain data exchanges took place, but it does not include the actual business data of the messages.
Yet X-Road can also be configured to include full messages in the logging. In that case, the logs contain the full content of the message and could be even used as evidence in court. I think this is an area that has not yet been tested very thoroughly in European jurisdictions. I am curious to see if there will be cases in the future where someone will dispute that the message used before court only has metadata logs and therefore only proves that the message was exchanged but not what the content of the message was. This is one area where X-Road may have an advantage. The logs are comprehensive and provide the entire message if desired.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=“IM+io: Does this mean that users of X-Road do not have to worry about data security anymore?“ font_container=“tag:h3|text_align:left“][vc_column_text]VS: Unfortunately not. Having logs that include the entire message means that there are additional challenges for information security. Nevertheless, that is a problem that every information system faces. You always have system administrators who have access to the data, this cannot be avoided. In addition to that, everything is also related to the information systems connected to X-Road. Even if we use logging, digital signing, time stamping and different authentication and rights management mechanisms, the backend-information systems have their own information security measures. X-Road is not a magic bullet that will solve all the information security issues. Still, it can be an essential step forward in building a unified ecosystem in countries when all organisations utilise a unified security model.
I’ve been talking to some CIO’s who said that one major problem is that they do not have anything like an ecosystem. Instead, they have a bunch of information systems based on different technologies, maintained by various organisations and having nonidentical criteria for information security. Due to the large number of information systems, it is difficult to understand and keep track of how those information systems were built and maintained. Having one ecosystem like X-Road with unified security measures makes it much easier to maintain, control and audit data exchange.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=“IM+io: A few weeks ago, platforms like Facebook or Instagram were offline for several hours. What are key factors that need to be considered, so that something like this does not happen to systems like X-Road?“ font_container=“tag:h3|text_align:left“][vc_column_text]VS: As I mentioned before, the Internet is part of our everyday life, and we do not believe that more significant technical problems, like this incident with Facebook, could occur. I think this was a perfect wake up call for everyone to understand what can happen when a technical problem arises.
As long as the core internet infrastructure is working, X-Road has multiple built-in methods to protect against the failure of key components. X-Road is based on a distributed architecture that makes it extremely fault tolerant. It has been designed to support simultaneous failures of its key components without affecting the ecosystem.
The key points we must consider when building critical infrastructure are:
1. What is the role of the Internet?
2. Which services can we run on Internet?
3. What are the critical, essential services that cannot be operated via Internet?[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=“IM+io: Could X-Road also be used in the private sector?“ font_container=“tag:h3|text_align:left“][vc_column_text]VS: Yes, it can be used by private companies. In a recent case study from Germany, X-Road has been implemented as part of a larger project in digital health. It has also been implemented as a corporate solution by some of the largest companies in Japan.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=“IM+io: What does the future hold? Are there any current projects you are working on to improve X-Road?“ font_container=“tag:h3|text_align:left“][vc_column_text]VS: First of all, we just finished a study on the environmental impacts of X-Road. It is our goal to make X-Road the most sustainable data exchange solution of its kind. We analysed in which areas we can do more to cut CO2 emissions, and we found out how we can make the system more sustainable. When we now make future decisions on the technical development of X-Road, we simultaneously want to evaluate the environmental impact.
Another area of our activity is analysing the general development in Europe, trying to forecast what will happen in the future. At the moment, Europe is working on projects like Gaia X and the Single Digital Gateway. Projects like these also are interesting for us and the further development of X-Road.
Furthermore, we are currently looking into CEF eDelivery systems. We are just about to release our new product: Harmony eDelivery Access; an eDelivery access point solution. The main reasons for its development were to provide a good product for our member countries and research purposes. We will assess the results of this new product and also consider if we want to embed eDelivery into X-Road. This means that X-Road could be compatible with eDelivery in the future, which would be a huge step forward in its development.[/vc_column_text][vc_custom_heading text=“IM+io: What comes next? Are you planning more around that?“ font_container=“tag:h3|text_align:left“][vc_column_text]PML: Yes, absolutley. We have many ideas. Our games so far have been very well suited to understand integration and the value of integration and collaboration, and it works very well. We want to target more the value of analytics. And we have several projects underway, including one called Cortex, which is a new breed of games specifically designed to learn artificial intelligence, new types of advanced statistical methods to a crowd of non-data scientists. So the main purpose is that anyone in the business school should understand exactly the value of those methods not to be able to run those methods, but to be able as a professional to interact with professionals. So we’re designing a new breed of games that are trying to go this round. We are also trying hard to bring other parts of the business school that has not been so far very well suited for our games, for example, HR-Management. So this is something that we have on our radar to try. These are examples of the direction that we are looking for as a way to expand the reach of the game into the domain that we’re not specifically designed with the game.

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